NIOA has welcomed its engagement by SYPAQ Systems to deliver critical counter-drone capability to the Australian Defence Force. 

The agreement teams Australian-owned NIOA with veteran-owned SYPAQ to provide fuzes and warheads for SYPAQ’s Corvo Strike Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System (C-UAS) interceptor platform. 

The Corvo Strike is a wholly Australian designed and manufactured, military grade C-UAS capability developed by SYPAQ as part of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) Mission Syracuse. 

Under the agreement, NIOA will deliver and integrate a telemetry capable Inert Proximity Fuze and Kinetic Effector Payload package. 

This work will include static firing demonstration of an accompanying live fuze variant and fragmenting warhead payload design and support SUAS integration in order to conduct flight demonstrations of the Inert Proximity Fuze, including Electronic, Safe Arm & Function (ESAF) device and telemetry function. 

The all-Australian SYPAQ-NIOA collaboration comes as the Australian Government unveiled plans to spend up to $7 billion on counter-drone capabilities to meet the priorities in the 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program. 

NIOA Group CEO Rob Nioa said: “This is a critical, operationally focused partnership between two of Australia’s leading defence primes.

“NIOA is delighted to be partnering with SYPAQ to bring our extensive capacity and industry knowledge on fuze and warhead technologies to bear on a key ASCA initiative in Mission Syracuse.

“This is exactly the sort of industry collaboration that needs to be fostered and accelerated if we are to provide the men and women of the ADF with sovereign, battle-ready CUAS capabilities.” 

SYPAQ Managing Director and CEO Amanda Holt described the partnership as “the example of what sovereign industrial collaboration needs to look like if we are to accelerate the delivery of relevant capability advantage”.

“SYPAQ deliberately seeks to partner with organisations that have the defence mission at its core, and know exactly where our respective strengths lie,” she said.

“This partnership brings the best of NIOA and SYPAQ engineering together to the benefit of the ADF.”  

ASCA’s Mission Syracuse supports LAND 156 through the acceleration of counter-uncrewed aerial system effector technologies to reduce time-to-service and to enhance the ADF’s layered and distributed ability to defeat adversary drone threats. 

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, SYPAQ Chief Engineer and Technical Director Ross Osborne and NIOA Group CEO Rob Nioa with SYPAQ’s Corvo Strike interceptor (pictured below) for which NIOA will provide fuzes and warheads in an all-Australian partnership.