Twister reconnaissance drone: Bundeswehr procures Quantum Systems design as Aladin successor

The German Bundeswehr is to receive a new reconnaissance drone, the Twister. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is made by the Bavarian company Quantum Systems GmbH; the procurement was reported by the German trade magazine Europäische Sicherheit & Technik (ESUT).

The Twister is to replace the Aladin system (Abbildende luftgestützte Aufklärungsdrohne im Nächstbereich), in Bundeswehr service since 2005. The budget committee of the German Bundestag gave the green light on 3 December. An initial 147 systems are being ordered, costing around 16 million euros and due for delivery by 2028. As ESUT further reports, a framework contract allows up to 600 additional systems to be called off, bringing the total value to 85 million euros.

The Twister is a vertical take-off fixed-wing UAV for the close range. Weighing 3.8 kilograms, it is 60 centimetres long with a wingspan of 125 centimetres. Two electric motors keep the system airborne for up to 90 minutes, with a radius of 15 kilometres, a maximum altitude of 3,700 metres and real-time data transmission. The Twister's video sensor gimbal (electro-optical/infrared, EO/IR) belongs to the same type family as that of the new Magni-X short-range aerial reconnaissance drone of the Austrian Armed Forces (Bundesheer).

Sensors of the reconnaissance drone

The Twister uses the Nighthawk2-UZ sensor from Next Vision. The dual, stabilised EO/IR camera turret was developed for remote-observation applications that demand very low weight. It covers its surroundings through a full 360 degrees, offers up to 40x total zoom, tracks targets automatically and can optionally illuminate targets by laser. Alternatively, the Twister carries an acoustic sensor to locate, for example, the sound of artillery or mortar fire to within ±5 degrees.

The Twister is capable of precision landings and collision avoidance by day and night, as well as uninterrupted flight operations without a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Integrated AI processing is handled by an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX processor, which analyses scenes immediately and assesses the situation. Communication runs over a dual-band data link with AES-256 encryption. It is also said to be compatible with Drone Port, the autonomous launch system from Quantum Systems.

Quantum Systems first showed the Twister in public in February 2025 at the Defence Tech Innovations Forum in Kyiv. According to the Ukrainian military magazine Militarnyi, Twister drones have also been produced in Ukrainian plants for the Ukrainian Armed Forces since July.