ADS — Autonomous Defense Systems, Lda. · Palmela, Portugal
ADS designs and builds unmanned aircraft systems and counter-drone technology for national militaries and special forces — engineered in Portugal, built for critical missions.
About
ADS is a Portuguese technology company building autonomous systems for critical missions. We combine artificial intelligence with precision engineering to deliver unmanned platforms for surveillance, strike, logistics and reconnaissance — and the counter-drone systems that deny the same advantage to adversaries.
We work alongside armed forces, security forces, and industrial and academic partners, with a dual-use vocation spanning military and civilian missions — built on technological sovereignty and control of the supply chain for critical components.
Every platform is designed, tested and manufactured at our engineering facility in Quinta do Anjo, Palmela.
Founder-led by Nelson Bensabat and Ricardo Silva.
Capabilities
Core competencies in autonomy, perception and communications, applied to dual-use platforms for military and civilian missions.
01
Fixed-wing and multirotor platforms for ISR, surveillance and logistics — including GNSS-denied operation.
UAS02
Detection, identification and neutralization of unmanned aerial threats, built around the Sentinel360 platform.
C-UAS03
ATAK integration and resilient communications — fibre optic, RF mesh, satcom — for electromagnetically contested environments.
C2 · Comms04
Autonomous navigation, path planning, and field-updatable AI models for target detection and classification.
Autonomy · AIUAV
Modular unmanned aircraft engineered for tactical, ISR and long-endurance missions — fully customizable to any mission profile.
Modular tactical multirotor
Payload
Up to 3 kg
Max Speed
120 km/h
Flight Time
7–41 min
Sensor Range
10 km
Modular payload: ISR, thermal, LiDAR mapping, comms relay, or strike configurations.
Fixed-wing VTOL, rapid deploy
MTOW
24 kg
Payload
Up to 5 kg
Cruise Speed
75 km/h
Flight Time
Up to 180 min
Wingspan 3,200 mm. Fully customizable to mission profile.
Long-range fixed-wing
MTOW
25 kg
Payload
Up to 8 kg
Cruise Speed
100 km/h
Flight Time
Up to 3 h
Wingspan 3,200 mm. Petrol or electric propulsion.
Extended-endurance platform
MTOW
30 kg
Payload
Up to 8 kg
Cruise Speed
110 km/h
Flight Time
4–6 h
Wingspan 3,600 mm. Internal payload bay included.
C-UAV
A scalable, end-to-end counter-drone platform that adapts to any threat. Sentinel360 combines detection, tracking, identification and mitigation in a single command-and-control system — ruggedized for outdoor, indoor, mobile or vehicle-mounted use.
01
RF sensors and pulse-Doppler 3D radar spot airborne threats day or night, including drones with no RF signature.
02
Radar, RF and electro-optical sensors fuse into a single command-and-control view, tracking 200+ targets at once.
03
Vendor, model and serial-level classification separates friend from foe and cuts false alarms.
04
Electronic or physical countermeasures neutralize the threat — automatically or under operator control.
Effective range
Key strengths
Typical applications
Verified
Ecosystem
ADS engages directly with Portuguese and European defense procurement — from national tenders to the funding frameworks shaping the continent's autonomous systems capability.
Contact
For procurement, partnership or technical enquiries, reach our team directly.
AddressEstrada Municipal 534, Vale de Cantadores, s/n
Armazém N, 2950-677 Quinta do Anjo, Palmela, Portugal
Phone+351 210 992 309
Emailinfo@adsystems.pt
Email ADS