Exail Robotics Belgium
Belgian subsidiary of Exail Technologies that builds K-Ster mine-disposal vehicles at Ostend.
Belgium's defence ministry awarded Exail Robotics Belgium €9,866,476 without competition on 14 September 2026 for three TRIDENT mine-disposal systems bound for Ukraine, the largest sum in a month of European underwater-robot notices.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Is Belgium's €9.87m TRIDENT order the July Exail order, or a new one?
Timeline for Exail Robotics Belgium
Won the TRIDENT contract
Autonomous Systems: Land & Sea: Belgium buys Exail mine kit for UkraineBackground
Exail Robotics Belgium is the Belgian subsidiary of Exail Technologies, the French group formerly known as ECA Group. Its Ostend factory, inaugurated in 2022, builds the majority of the uncrewed systems for the Belgian-Dutch rMCM mine-countermeasures programme, and the NATO Support and Procurement Agency has ordered its K-Ster vehicles for the Belgian and Dutch navies.
The K-STER C, which Exail developed in 2008, is a remotely operated, expendable mine-disposal vehicle carrying a tiltable shaped charge. It is launched from a host vessel, finds a mine and destroys itself with it. The TRIDENT package puts that vehicle on a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, giving a small TEAM a mine-disposal capability without a dedicated warship.
The 14 September 2026 award from Belgium's defence ministry, for three TRIDENT systems for Ukraine, extended that work beyond the two navies of the rMCM programme.
Exail Robotics Belgium wins a direct award
Belgium's defence ministry awarded Exail Robotics Belgium €9,866,476 on 14 September 2026, without competition, for three TRIDENT systems for Ukraine. Each TRIDENT (Tactical RHIB for Identification and Disposal of Explosive Naval Threats) is a boat that deploys The Firm's K-STER C mine-disposal vehicle.
The award was the largest in a month of European notices, published between 5 September and 7 October, in which most buyers ordered underwater robots one at a time. No source says whether it formalises the July order for three Exail light mine-countermeasures systems by an undisclosed European navy, or is a separate contract. Either way, it adds Ukraine to a customer base the Ostend subsidiary built on the Belgian-Dutch mine-countermeasures programme.
