Counter-UAS
Counter-Drone Technology: How Militaries Defeat UAVs
Radar, jamming, lasers, interceptors and drone-on-drone — how counter-UAS works, who leads it, and who is legally allowed to shoot a drone down.
Updated
51 news articles on Counter-UAS ↓
Every company on the DHS counter-drone contract
Twelve firms hold the five-year, $1.5 billion DHS counter-UAS contract. Which track each sits on, and what that track buys.
Checked· Latest addition: Anduril,
- Covers
- Every company holding a place on either track of the DHS counter-drone contract, from federal award records.
- Leaves out
- Orders and revenue: a place on the contract is permission to sell to DHS, not a sale.
Spotted an error? Email contact@flightbrief.news with the row and the document that shows it.
12 of 12
| Track 1 — hardware and software | |
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EMS Defense Technologies | Track 1 — hardware and software |
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| Track 2 — managed services | |
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Parsons | Track 2 — managed services |
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| Both tracks | |
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Astrion | Track 2 — managed services |
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| Nothing matches. Clear the search or pick another filter. | |
Where this comes from. Assembled by FlightBrief from the federal award records on USAspending, one per company per track, and contemporaneous reporting, and carried in our coverage of the Motorola acquisition. The contract runs five years to July 2031 out of the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. Track 1 is worth about $1.01 billion, per Fortem, and covers hardware and software; Track 2 was reported at roughly $489 million and covers managed services. Leidos, BAE Systems and, since 15 September 2026, Anduril hold positions on both, which is why eight and seven entries make twelve companies. An IDIQ is a ceiling and an eligibility list, not an order: a place on it means a DHS component may buy without running its own competition, and no company here is guaranteed any revenue.
Sources
- USAspending, TSA task order 70T05026F6116N004 to Dedrone Defense, the first order on the contract, 28 September 2026
- Inside Unmanned Systems, DHS awards $1.5 billion counter-UAS contract to 12 companies, August 2026
- Washington Technology, 12 firms land spots on DHS’s $1.5 billion counter-unmanned aircraft contract, August 2026
- USAspending, award records 70RDA226D00000001 to 70RDA226D00000015 (Anduril’s Track 1 award, the fifteenth, shown), 15 September 2026
- Fortem Technologies, selected as prime contractor on the DHS counter-drone IDIQ, giving Track 1 at $1.011 billion, 4 August 2026
- Motorola Solutions, completion of the D-Fend Solutions acquisition, 20 August 2026
Cite or reuse this table
FlightBrief, “Every company on the DHS counter-drone contract”, checked Oct 7, 2026, https://flightbrief.news/topics/counter-uas/#dataset-dhs-cuas-idiq-awardees
Free to reuse, including commercially, under CC BY 4.0. Credit FlightBrief and link to this page.
US state counter-drone laws and FEMA counter-drone grants
All 56 states and territories: nine states with a counter-drone law of their own (eleven acts, 2025–2026), the twelve recipients of FEMA’s first $250 million in counter-UAS grants, and every jurisdiction’s share of the second $250 million.
Checked· Latest addition: Missouri,
- Covers
- Enacted state laws that let state or local agencies detect, track or disable drones, FEMA’s first-round counter-drone grants and its FY2027 allocations.
- Leaves out
- Laws that only create offences, and bills that died, were vetoed or are pending.
Spotted an error? Email contact@flightbrief.news with the row and the document that shows it.
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AlabamaAct 2026-187 (HB 274), prisons; Act 2026-270 (SB 231), Capitol area | Law and grant | 1 June 2026 (HB 274); 17 March 2026 (SB 231) | None | $3,935,096 |
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AlaskaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,527,925 |
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American SamoaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $823,677 |
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ArizonacontestedLaws 2025, Ch. 89 (HB 2733) | Law and grant | 26 September 2025 | None | $4,687,814 |
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ArkansasNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,579,145 |
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CaliforniaNone enacted | Grant only | — | $34,591,628 | $18,665,396 |
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ColoradoNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,234,895 |
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ConnecticutNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,637,410 |
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DelawareNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,622,760 |
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District of ColumbiaNone enacted | Grant only | — | $28,266,328 | $4,017,822 |
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FloridaNone enacted | Grant only | — | $23,636,511 | $7,754,298 |
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GeorgiaAct 388 (HB 1230), prisons and jails | Law and grant | 1 July 2026 | $20,284,936 | $5,347,213 |
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GuamNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $871,649 |
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HawaiiNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,905,368 |
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IdahoSession Laws 2026, Ch. 233 (HB 522), Idaho Code § 20-251 | Law and grant | 1 July 2026 | None | $3,583,858 |
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IllinoisNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $6,191,636 |
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IndianaPublic Law 72-2026 (SEA 227), IC 10-22 | Law and grant | 1 July 2026, after a governor’s notice | None | $3,924,953 |
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IowaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,709,882 |
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KansasNone enacted | Grant only | — | $5,341,058 | $3,725,420 |
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KentuckyNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,905,006 |
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LouisianaAct 170 of 2025 (HB 261); Act 854 of 2026 (HB 940) | Law and grant | 1 August 2025 (Act 170); 8 June 2026 (Act 854) | None | $4,155,010 |
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MaineNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,498,846 |
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MarylandNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,694,091 |
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MassachusettsNone enacted | Grant only | — | $21,891,527 | $4,816,663 |
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MichiganNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,425,508 |
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MinnesotaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,309,550 |
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MississippiNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,617,564 |
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MissouriHBs 2637 & 3155 (2026), §§ 589.900–589.902 RSMo | Law and grant | 12 June 2026 (emergency clause) | $14,240,568 | $4,119,355 |
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MontanaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,457,975 |
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NebraskaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,559,051 |
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NevadaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,079,005 |
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New HampshireNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,483,421 |
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New JerseyNone enacted | Grant only | — | $21,764,005 | $4,737,397 |
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New MexicoNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,594,595 |
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New YorkLaws of 2026, Ch. 55, Part D (Executive Law § 236) | Law and grant | 25 August 2026 | $17,731,725 | $13,918,889 |
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North CarolinaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,596,469 |
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North DakotaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,458,409 |
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Northern Mariana IslandsNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $822,338 |
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OhioNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,865,398 |
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OklahomaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,726,391 |
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OregonNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,036,709 |
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PennsylvaniaNone enacted | Grant only | — | $12,470,777 | $5,908,097 |
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Puerto RicoNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,610,933 |
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Rhode IslandNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,482,161 |
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South CarolinaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,895,891 |
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South DakotaHB 1280 (2026), SDCL ch. 50-15 | Law and grant | 1 July 2026 | None | $3,447,704 |
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TennesseeNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $4,161,074 |
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TexasNone enacted | Grant only | — | $30,276,431 | $10,508,140 |
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U.S. Virgin IslandsNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $839,746 |
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UtahNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,657,757 |
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VermontNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,414,026 |
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VirginiaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $5,728,718 |
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WashingtonNone enacted | Grant only | — | $19,504,506 | $4,816,783 |
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West VirginiaNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,547,537 |
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WisconsinNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,939,965 |
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WyomingNone enacted | Grant only | — | None | $3,417,611 |
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| Nothing matches. Clear the search or pick another filter. | ||||
Where this comes from. Assembled by FlightBrief from the enacted or enrolled text of each state act on the legislature’s own site, with the governor’s action as the legislature records it, and from FEMA’s award table for the Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Grant Program (Assistance Listing 97.161), read on the verification date. A law is a row when it is enacted and gives state or local agencies power to detect, track or disable drones, or sets up a counter-drone programme; laws that only create offences for flying near prisons or events, and bills that died, were vetoed or are pending, are not rows (the dossier names them). The FY2026 grants are the first round, awarded 30 December 2025 to the 11 FIFA World Cup host states and the National Capital Region. The FY2027 figures are FEMA’s allocations for the second $250 million, from Appendix I of its notice of funding opportunity of 16 October 2026: each state, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia gets at least $3,325,000 and each smaller territory at least $760,000, with the rest by risk. Applications close on 16 November 2026 and FEMA expects to make the awards on 10 December 2026; until then they are allocations, not awards. Status counts either round as a grant. A state law does not replace federal law: under SAFER SKIES, mitigation still needs federal certification and training, and several state acts say so. In-force dates for South Dakota and Georgia are those states’ default effective dates, not dates the acts set.
Sources
- FEMA, Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Grant Program (awards table)
- FEMA, FY2026 C-UAS notice of funding opportunity
- FEMA, FY2027 C-UAS notice of funding opportunity (Appendix I, allocations), 16 October 2026
- FEMA, award announcement, 30 December 2025
- State legislatures, enacted texts, linked from each row
- USAspending.gov, federal sub-award reports
Cite or reuse this table
FlightBrief, “US state counter-drone laws and FEMA counter-drone grants”, checked Oct 19, 2026, https://flightbrief.news/topics/counter-uas/#dataset-state-counter-drone-laws
Free to reuse, including commercially, under CC BY 4.0. Credit FlightBrief and link to this page.
Interceptor drones in service, on order or cleared for sale
Seventeen systems built to destroy other drones, with the maker’s own top speed where one is published and the ministry, contract or sale notice behind each.
Checked· Latest addition: SkyFall interceptor drones (model not named),
- Covers
- Interceptor drones a government has fielded, ordered or been notified a sale of, or that the maker says units use, named in a document from 2025 or later.
- Leaves out
- Prototypes, demonstrations and products with no order, and unit prices, which no source states.
Spotted an error? Email contact@flightbrief.news with the row and the document that shows it.
17 of 17
OctopusUkrainian design, licensed to UK industry | In service | Not published | Ukraine; UK production under licence | Ukraine; United Kingdom |
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ShvidunNot named by the Ministry | In service | Above 250 km/h (Ministry) | Ukraine’s armed forces | Ukraine |
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LITAVRF-Drones | In service | 350 km/h (Ministry) | Ukraine’s armed forces | Ukraine |
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StingWild Hornets | In service | 280 km/h in stable flight (maker, to FlightBrief) | Ukrainian units named by the maker | Ukraine |
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SkyFall interceptor drones (model not named)SkyFall | Ordered | Not published | Japan’s Ministry of Defense | Ukraine |
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| Ordered | 415 km/h (maker brochure) | Ukraine’s National Guard, 15,000 units | Germany; Ukraine | |
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TYTAN interceptor dronesTYTAN Technologies | Ordered | Not published | Germany’s procurement office (BAAINBw) | Germany |
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SkyhammercontestedCambridge Aerospace | Ordered | 700 km/h (UK government) | UK Armed Forces and Gulf partners | United Kingdom |
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Hornet Block 2Destinus | Ordered | Up to 400 km/h (maker, to FlightBrief) | Royal Netherlands Navy, development contract | Netherlands |
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BLAZEOrigin Robotics | Ordered | Not published | Latvia, Belgium and Estonia | Latvia |
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Merops (AS3)Perennial Autonomy | Ordered | Not published | JIATF-401, $500 million ceiling | United States |
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Bumblebee V2Perennial Autonomy | Ordered | Not published | JIATF-401, $5.2 million | United States |
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DroneHunter F700Fortem Technologies | Ordered | Not published | JIATF-401, two systems | United States |
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A1-FalkeARGUS Interception | In service | Not published | Bundeswehr; federal police | Germany |
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Coyote Block 2contestedRaytheon | Ordered | Not published | US Army; Qatar and Jordan | United States |
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Roadrunner-MAnduril | Sale notified | Subsonic (notice) | Kuwait, sale notified | United States |
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Anvil-KineticAnduril | Sale notified | Not published | Kuwait, sale notified | United States |
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| Nothing matches. Clear the search or pick another filter. | ||||
The source has not published it.
Where this comes from. Assembled by FlightBrief from ministry pages, contract and sale notices, buyers’ releases and the makers’ own pages and brochures, read on the verification date. A system is a row when a document dated 2025 or later names it as an interceptor for uncrewed aircraft and shows that a government has fielded, ordered or been notified a sale of it, or that its maker says units are using it. Prototypes, demonstrations and products announced without an order are not rows (the dossier names them). Top speed is the maker’s or ministry’s stated maximum and is left as "Not published" where no such page exists; press figures from videos and interviews are not used. Unit prices are not shown: none of the sources states one. “Ordered” means a contract or order is announced, not that units have been delivered; a framework ceiling such as Perennial’s $500 million is the most the buyer may spend, not what it has spent; and a notified foreign sale is a proposal to Congress, not a contract. Two rows are marked contested because their buyer or maker calls the system a missile.
Sources
- Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, Shvidun interceptor, 31 March 2026
- Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, more than 25 interceptor models authorised, 21 August 2025
- Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, F-Drones LITAVR, 8 June 2026
- Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Octopus licensing agreement with the UK, 27 November 2025
- UK government, new drone factory opens in Suffolk (Octopus production), 26 February 2026
- UK Ministry of Defence, Cambridge Aerospace Skyhammer, 10 April 2026
- Quantum Systems, interceptor drones for Ukraine (STRILA), 23 March 2026
- Quantum Systems, STRILA brochure (WIY Drones)
- Quantum Systems, Merz announces interceptor-drone package, 4 October 2026
- NATO Innovation Fund, TYTAN Series A, 24 February 2026
- Destinus, Hornet B2 naval counter-UAS programme
- Destinus, Hornet product page
- Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, BLAZE deliveries, 6 February 2026
- Perennial Autonomy, $500 million IDIQ release, 19 May 2026
- US Army, JIATF-401 Bumblebee V2 agreement
- US Army, G-TEAD counter-drone capability for NATO’s eastern flank (Merops)
- US Army, JIATF-401 first Replicator 2 purchase (DroneHunter F700), 11 January 2026
- ARGUS Interception, net interceptor delivered to the Bundeswehr, 26 September 2025
- ARGUS Interception, A1-Falke delivered to the federal police, 2 February 2026
- German defence ministry, budget committee approves net-firing drones, 14 October 2026
- RTX Raytheon, $729 million LIDS award for the US Army, Qatar and Jordan, 13 October 2026
- RTX Raytheon, Coyote counter-UAS page
- Federal Register, arms sales notification 26-74, Kuwait counter-UAS platforms, 22 July 2026
- Wild Hornets, maker site
- Japan Ministry of Defense, Defence Minister’s press conference (SkyFall contract), 9 October 2026
Cite or reuse this table
FlightBrief, “Interceptor drones in service, on order or cleared for sale”, checked Nov 4, 2026, https://flightbrief.news/topics/counter-uas/#dataset-interceptor-drones
Free to reuse, including commercially, under CC BY 4.0. Credit FlightBrief and link to this page.
Latest on Counter-UAS
Guide
Governments announced more than $53 billion in counter-drone contracts in the first eight months of 2026. For comparison, the analyst forecasts this guide used to quote had the entire global market reaching $20 billion by 2030. The market research was not slightly behind. It was describing a different industry.
Two other things changed the picture this year. On 2 September the US Army awarded AeroVironment $464.8 million for LOCUST X3 laser weapons — the first production contract for a high-energy laser in US history, which moves directed energy out of the demonstration phase it has occupied for a decade. And in July, a new rule gave American state and local police the legal authority to bring a drone down themselves, which until then almost nobody outside a short federal list could do.
The technology stack has not changed much. Detect, classify, track, identify, decide, defeat, assess. What changed is money, legal authority, and the fact that some of this is now being bought in production quantities rather than tested.
Key facts
- Counter-UAS is the detection, tracking, identification and defeat of hostile drones. The stack is the same everywhere: radar and radio-frequency sensing to find them, cameras to confirm, then jamming, lasers, guns, missiles or interceptor drones to stop them.
- Governments announced more than $53 billion in counter-drone contracts in the first eight months of 2026, by Unmanned Airspace’s count; the analyst forecasts quoted before then had the whole market at $20 billion by 2030.
- The US Army awarded AeroVironment $464.8 million for LOCUST X3 laser weapons on 2 September 2026, the first production contract for a high-energy laser in the United States.
- Since 1 July 2026 the SAFER SKIES rule has let certified US state and local police bring a drone down themselves; before it, that authority sat with a short list of federal agencies.
- Twelve firms hold the five-year, $1.5 billion DHS counter-UAS contract, split into a hardware track of about $1.01 billion and a services track of about $489 million; the table on this page lists them.
- Ukraine’s interceptor drones, at roughly $1,000–2,000 each, cost less than the Shahed-type drones they stop; Ukrainian forces intercepted 7,674 Russian drones in March 2026.
What Is Counter-UAS Technology?
Counter-UAS is the business of detecting, tracking, identifying and defeating unmanned aircraft that threaten military forces, critical infrastructure or civilians. It barely existed as an organised defense sector before 2016.
The US Army alone requested $994 million for small counter-UAS procurement in FY2027, against $596 million enacted for FY2026. The comparison is worth reading carefully: the whole FY2027 request is discretionary, while FY2026’s total split into $336 million discretionary and $260 million in mandatory reconciliation spending. Measured discretionary to discretionary it is a 195% rise; measured against the total the Army actually received, it is closer to double. Either way the direction is the same, and the Army anticipates asking for $1.4 billion in FY2028. Across the whole department, the FY2027 request earmarks roughly $20 billion for counter-drone work inside a $75 billion drone and counter-drone total. JIATF 401, the Joint Interagency Task Force set up in 2025 to coordinate counter-drone efforts across government, asked for $580.3 million in research and development against $6.5 million the year before.
Inside that request, $414 million goes to operational counter-UAS — batteries, expeditionary platforms, mobile sensors — $165 million to fixed-site defense, and $132 million to effectors, including 24 units of the Next Generation Counter-UAS Missile that AeroVironment builds as Freedom Eagle-1. The directed-energy line is $66 million, modest against the rest and, as the laser section below shows, no longer the whole picture.
The core problem is arithmetic. A $500 FPV drone has destroyed tanks worth $2-5 million in Ukraine. A Coyote Block 2 interceptor costs somewhere around $100,000-$200,000 per shot. Fire a Patriot-class missile at a commercial-grade kamikaze drone and you lose the exchange by a factor in the thousands.
Every serious development in this field is an attempt to fix that ratio. Lasers do it by making the shot nearly free. High-power microwave does it by defeating many drones at once. Drone-on-drone does it by making the interceptor as cheap as the threat.
How Are Drones Detected?
Detection is the foundation. The dominant approach pairs radar with RF sensing and uses EO/IR cameras to confirm what the other sensors found. Acoustic adds a cheap passive layer in the right conditions.

Radar
Radar is still the primary detection method for small UAS. Raytheon’s KuRFS is the US Army’s main counter-UAS radar, paired with Coyote interceptors in LIDS, the Low, Slow, Small UAS Integrated Defeat System. It gives 360-degree coverage and detects Class 1 drones past 15 km. The Pentagon awarded Raytheon $5.04 billion in September 2025 for KuRFS radars, Coyote interceptors, launchers and support through 2033.
Robin Radar’s IRIS reaches 12 km against small drones including Shahed-class munitions, weighs 29 kg and works on the move. HENSOLDT’s Spexer 2000 3D radar serves with the Bundeswehr in the GUARDION field-camp protection system. Fortem’s TrueView R20 AESA radar runs under 7 kg at 38 watts and cues the DroneHunter interceptor.
RF and Signal Detection
RF detection identifies a drone by its control link, video downlink or Remote ID broadcast. Its real advantage is that it can geolocate the operator as well as the aircraft, when the controller is transmitting. Defeating the person is often more useful than defeating the airframe.
Dedrone’s RF-360 classifies roughly 600 drone models with direction-finding to 8 km in good conditions. Sentrycs takes the protocol-takeover route instead of brute-force jamming. DroneShield’s RfOne MkII does RF direction-finding to 8 km. Anduril’s Lattice pulls Pulsar electronic warfare sensors, Sentry radar towers and WISP infrared cameras into one fire-control picture.
Passive sensing has become its own procurement category. Hidden Level received a $100 million Other Transaction Authority award in July 2026 to scale passive RF sensing across Department of War customers — its systems listen rather than transmit, which matters for installations that do not want to advertise their own sensor emissions. The award is a contracting route rather than guaranteed revenue, and no detection ranges or deployment schedules were published with it.
RF detection has a hard limit. Autonomous drones, fiber-optic FPVs and pre-programmed one-way attack drones emit little or nothing. Against those, radar and acoustics carry the load.
Acoustic Detection
Passive acoustic arrays pick up propeller and motor signatures. They are cheap, passive and cannot be jammed, which makes them useful for cuing when other sensors are saturated.
Ukraine runs the largest operational acoustic network in the world: roughly 14,000 low-cost nodes under Sky Fortress, for less than $5 million in total, used to detect Shahed-type drones and cue sirens and higher-end intercept systems.
The limitations are real. Range is typically 300-500 metres in the field and falls away in wind above 5 m/s, rain, urban traffic and anywhere near artillery. The US Army issued a request for information in January 2026 for Group 1 and 2 acoustic detection that works on the move and feeds Tactical Assault Kit — treating acoustic as a soldier-level layer, not a primary sensor.
EO/IR and AI Sensor Fusion
EO/IR cameras are the identification layer: they confirm whether a radar or RF track is a drone, a bird, an airliner or a false positive. Controp’s SPEED-ER reaches 40 km for land-based surveillance.
Fusion platforms correlate radar, RF, acoustic and optical feeds to cut false alarms and automate the kill chain. Anduril’s Lattice was selected by JIATF 401 in March 2026 as the enterprise tactical command-and-control layer for US government counter-UAS, with a first task order of $87 million. Dedrone’s Tracker.AI runs at more than 955 sites globally. Ukraine’s Sky Map platform, built for Shahed detection, was deployed by US personnel at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in April 2026.
How Does Electronic Warfare Counter Drones?
Electronic warfare defeats a drone by attacking its links rather than its airframe: jamming overpowers the control, video or navigation signal, and spoofing feeds it false positioning until it lands, hovers or flies home.
RF Jamming
Jamming overpowers the control link, video feed or navigation signal. What happens next depends on the drone’s firmware: hover, return to home, descend, or crash. Handheld systems reach 500 m to 2 km, vehicle-mounted beyond 5 km.
DroneShield’s DroneGun Mk4 weighs 3.2 kg and is fielded with several Western militaries; the DroneGun Tactical reaches 1-2 km. Dedrone’s Defender 2 is protocol-specific rather than broadband, which reduces collateral interference in crowded RF environments. Safran’s Skyjacker, tested on French Navy frigates and used during the Paris Olympics, combines jamming with GNSS spoofing at 1-10 km.
GPS Spoofing
Spoofing feeds false positioning signals to redirect or crash a GNSS-dependent drone. Ukraine has used it extensively against Russian Shaheds, with documented cases of drones diverted into Belarus or empty fields, and built the national Pokrova system to spoof GPS along the line of contact.
It only works on drones that trust GNSS. By 2025 both sides had pushed hard into inertial navigation, visual-inertial odometry, terrain-referenced navigation, pre-programmed routes, frequency agility and fiber-optic links that skip RF altogether. Jamming and spoofing still work well against commercial-grade platforms. Against purpose-built military systems hardened for contested airspace, less and less.
What Are Directed Energy Weapons for Counter-Drone?
Directed energy weapons are lasers and high-power microwaves: a laser burns one drone at a time for a few dollars of electricity a shot, and a microwave pulse disables the electronics of every drone in its beam at once.

High-Energy Lasers
Lasers burn a point on the target until something structural, optical or electrical fails. Cost per shot is electricity — roughly $1-10, against $100,000 or more for a kinetic interceptor. The constraint is physics: weather, smoke, dust and atmospheric turbulence degrade the beam, and a 2-5 second dwell per target limits how fast you can work through a swarm.
The category crossed a threshold on 2 September 2026. The US Army awarded AeroVironment $464.8 million under the Enduring-High Energy Laser programme for LOCUST X3, a 30 kW system aimed at Group 1-3 drones, with delivery of “well into the dozens” of units expected over the next few years. It is the first production contract for a high-energy laser weapon in US history. Every other programme on this page is still a prototype, a demonstrator or a shipboard trial.
The rest of the field: the US Navy’s HELIOS, a 60 kW Lockheed Martin system on USS Preble, has downed drones in testing. Israel’s Iron Beam, a Rafael 100 kW-class fiber laser, is the most operationally proven, with a cost per shot estimated at $2-3.50 and confirmed combat use. The UK’s DragonFire, 50 kW from MBDA, Leonardo and QinetiQ, hit roughly £10 per shot and is contracted for Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers from 2027 under a £316 million deal.
High-Power Microwave
HPM emits a directed electromagnetic pulse that damages electronics across an area rather than burning one point. That makes it the natural answer to swarms — a single engagement can defeat dozens of drones, where a laser is one-to-one by construction.
Epirus’s Leonidas is the most commercially mature: solid-state, software-defined gallium nitride, with Gen II units reaching roughly 2 km. The Army awarded Epirus $66.1 million in 2023 for IFPC-HPM prototypes, delivered all four by March 2024, and followed with a $43.5 million Gen II contract in July 2025. In August 2026 the Marine Corps added an $11 million contract through the Office of Naval Research for HAVOC, which puts an Epirus HPM system on a universal sled mount so it can move between crewed and uncrewed ground vehicles.
In December 2025 Leonidas became the first HPM system demonstrated against fiber-optic FPV drones. That matters more than the contract values: fiber-optic guidance exists specifically to defeat RF jamming, and HPM is currently the most credible counter to it.
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s THOR is a containerised HPM system that flies on a C-130 and assembles in about three hours with two people. Leidos is building the follow-on Mjölnir.
What Kinetic Systems Kill Drones?
Kinetic systems destroy the drone physically: guided missiles such as Raytheon’s Coyote at $100,000–200,000 a shot, programmable-airburst cannon rounds, and interceptor drones that ram or detonate beside the target.
Missile Interceptors
Raytheon’s Coyote is the Army’s primary missile-based counter-sUAS interceptor, at roughly $100,000-$200,000 per shot for Block 2. Block 3NK is a reusable non-kinetic variant. The September 2025 $5.04 billion contract covers launchers, kinetic and non-kinetic effectors, KuRFS radars and support through 2033. Enduring Shield, from Leidos and Dynetics under IFPC Increment 2, took a $617 million award in April 2026, bringing total IFPC production contracts near $1.2 billion.
Anduril’s interceptors have gone export. In June 2026 the State Department approved, and notified to Congress, a possible $1.98 billion sale to Kuwait built around Roadrunner-M and Anvil kinetic interceptors, bundled with electronic warfare, sensors and Lattice command and control as a single counter-drone network. That is one of the largest counter-UAS foreign military sales ever notified.
Gun-Based Systems
Rheinmetall’s Skyranger 30 and 35 are the benchmark mobile gun systems. The 30 mm fires 1,250 rounds per minute to roughly 3 km using programmable AHEAD airburst ammunition; the 35 mm reaches 4 km. Germany ordered a prototype plus 18 vehicles for about €595 million, with a potential programme of 600-plus systems that could exceed €9 billion. Rheinmetall has also put Skyranger on the uncrewed Ripsaw M5.
The US Navy’s Phalanx CIWS — 20 mm, 4,500 rounds per minute, 1.5 km — has Block 1B variants adapted for small UAS, though the economics only work when what you are protecting is very valuable.
Net Capture
OpenWorks’ SkyWall Patrol is a shoulder-fired net launcher reaching about 100 m, with parachute recovery so the drone survives for forensics. Fortem’s DroneHunter F700 is an autonomous interceptor that uses onboard radar to chase and net its target; the Army awarded Fortem an $18 million three-year contract in 2026. Net capture earns its place in urban and sensitive environments where falling debris is unacceptable.
What Is Drone-on-Drone Interception?
Ukraine made this mainstream. Interceptor drones at $1,000-$2,000 each, used against Shahed-type drones, invert the cost exchange that every other method loses. Ukrainian forces intercepted 2,975 Russian drones in January 2026 and 7,674 in March.
US programmes are industrialising it. Fortem’s DroneHunter is in Army service, Anduril’s Anvil is integrated with Lattice and has been demonstrated at NORTHCOM’s Falcon Peak exercises, and Coyote Block 3NK adds a reusable non-kinetic option.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said in August 2025 that more than 25 Ukrainian interceptor models were authorised for military use. The interceptor table on this page lists the seventeen systems, in Ukraine, Europe and the United States, where a ministry, a contract or a sale notice shows someone is using or buying them. One of them, SkyFall’s, now has a buyer in Asia: Japan’s Ministry of Defense said on 9 October 2026 that it had signed a contract for them. Germany’s budget committee approved net-firing interceptors for Bundeswehr bases on 14 October 2026, without naming a maker; ARGUS Interception says its A1-Falke net drone already serves the Bundeswehr and the federal police. Four state a top speed: Shvidun above 250 km/h, LITAVR 350, STRILA 415 and Skyhammer 700.
The economics are compelling and the preconditions are demanding. Cheap interceptors need reliable detection, fast cueing, autonomous target acquisition and airspace deconfliction. Without that sensor and command infrastructure underneath, drone-on-drone creates as many problems as it solves.
Who Is Actually Allowed to Shoot Down a Drone?
For most of the past decade the answer in the United States was: almost nobody. Counter-drone authority sat with a short list of federal agencies. A police department watching a drone over its own stadium could see it on a display and do nothing.
That changed with the SAFER SKIES Act, enacted as Title LXXXVI of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act and signed on 18 December 2025. The implementing interim final rule — issued jointly by Homeland Security and Justice — took effect on 1 July 2026.
It creates two tiers. A detection-and-warning certification allows detecting, identifying, monitoring, tracking, warning and confiscation. A mitigation certification goes further: disrupting, interfering with, seizing control of or destroying an aircraft using reasonable force.
The obligations are substantial. A certified agency needs an implementation policy, an approved technology list, an operations plan, coordination and notification arrangements, and real-time notification to air traffic control. Mitigation actions must be reported within 48 hours, with semiannual operational summaries.
The rule states that the FBI’s National Counter-UAS Training Center has trained and certified operators from roughly 46 agencies. The government’s own paperwork anticipates about 1,850 participating. By late August the FBI said about 500 officers had been trained since the rule took effect, without saying how many of them are cleared to take a drone down. Legal authority arrived years ahead of the training pipeline to use it. Ondas said in August that the Jacksonville Jaguars’ EverBank Stadium would be the first NFL venue to use it, with a Sentrycs protocol-takeover system run by trained police from the 27 September 2026 home game.
States are writing their own rules around the federal one. Nine had enacted counter-drone laws by October 2026, most of them for prisons: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and South Dakota let officers jam or capture drones over correctional facilities. Missouri and Indiana tie their powers to federal certification, and New York, whose law took effect on 25 August 2026, adds state training on top of it and an approved-vendor list for state and local buyers. The second table on this page lists each law and each state’s federal grants.
The money arrived before most of the laws. FEMA paid the first $250 million of its counter-drone grants on 30 December 2025 to the 11 World Cup host states and the National Capital Region, from $34.6 million for California to $5.3 million for Kansas. Only Georgia, Missouri and New York have both a first-round grant and a counter-drone law of their own. FEMA opened the second $250 million to all 56 states and territories on 16 October 2026, from $18.7 million for California to $822,338 for the Northern Mariana Islands; applications close on 16 November and FEMA expects to make the awards on 10 December.
For anyone selling counter-drone equipment to US domestic customers, that gap is the addressable market. For anyone responsible for a venue, it is the reason a system you are legally allowed to own may still sit unused.
How Do Militaries Layer C-UAS Defenses?
No single technology handles every threat at every range. Modern architectures are deliberately layered: wide-area sensors for early warning, soft-kill in the middle, hard-kill on the inside.
The US Army pairs KuRFS radar with Coyote for the tactical layer, adds electronic warfare and Leonidas HPM for point defense, and ties it together through FAAD C2 and increasingly Anduril Lattice. IFPC Increment 2 bridges short-range air defense and Patriot-class systems. LOCUST X3 will slot into the inner layer as it fields.
Israel runs the most mature stack. Iron Dome takes rockets and some drones, Drone Dome adds radar, RF, EO/IR and jamming for local counter-UAS, and Iron Beam is the innermost directed-energy layer that pulls down the cost per intercept.
Europe is building its own. The European Commission published an Action Plan on Drone and Counter Drone Security on 11 February 2026, turning the political “drone wall” idea into the European Drone Defence Initiative and folding it into the Defence Readiness Roadmap with a dedicated drone and counter-drone capability area. Officials talk about an early capability in 2026 — realistically radar and sensors with light mitigation — and an EU-level legal framework for counter-UAS by 2030. Separately the European Defence Fund committed €1.07 billion across 57 defence projects, with significant drone and counter-drone content.
National procurement is running ahead of the EU framework. France’s PARADE programme awards Thales and CS Group roughly $370 million. Poland’s SAN programme, a Kongsberg and PGZ consortium for 18 counter-UAS batteries, is valued around $4.2 billion.
Which Companies Lead the C-UAS Market?
RTX / Raytheon — the largest single contractor by value. KuRFS plus Coyote generated the $5.04 billion September 2025 multiyear award.
Anduril Industries — command and control plus autonomous interceptors. The Army awarded it a $20 billion ten-year contract vehicle in March 2026, with the first task order counter-drone work at $87 million through JIATF 401, and the State Department notified Congress of a possible $1.98 billion Kuwait sale in June.
AeroVironment — absent from earlier versions of this guide and now impossible to leave out. The BlueHalo acquisition brought counter-UAS and directed energy in-house, and LOCUST X3 gives it the first US production contract for a high-energy laser weapon at $464.8 million.
Epirus — high-power microwave specialist and the only US HPM system in Army field service. $66.1 million in 2023, $43.5 million Gen II in 2025, $11 million Marine Corps HAVOC award in August 2026, and a $250 million Series D taking total funding past $550 million.
DroneShield — Australian RF detection and jamming pure play, listed on the ASX as DRO. First-half 2026 revenue was a record A$125.8 million, up 74%, with recurring revenue up 229%. It reaffirmed full-year guidance of A$250-270 million while posting a statutory loss of A$32.2 million as it builds production capacity.
Hidden Level — passive RF sensing, with a $100 million OTA vehicle awarded in July 2026 covering hardware, software and its Airspace Monitoring Service.
Fortem Technologies — drone-on-drone net capture, with an $18 million three-year Army contract in 2026 pairing TrueView radar with DroneHunter.
Dedrone / Axon — sensor fusion and RF, acquired by Axon in 2024, with Tracker.AI at more than 955 sites.
Rheinmetall — mobile short-range air defense. Roughly €595 million of Skyranger orders from Germany with potential expansion past €9 billion.
Leidos / Dynetics — IFPC Increment 2 launchers, $617 million in April 2026, total production contracts near $1.2 billion.
SRC Inc. — LIDS radar and electronic warfare integration, including a Qatar sale reported around $1 billion.
What Is Driving Demand?
Ukraine reset procurement everywhere. Kyiv School of Economics data showed drones engaging 80-85% of frontline targets by mid-2025, with at least 215,000 drone strikes recorded that summer. Russia launched 6,129 Shahed-type drones in July 2025 alone, 741 of them in a single night. Mass drone attack became a normal military method, and counter-UAS moved from niche capability to tier-one priority.

The Red Sea confirmed the cost problem. Reuters reported the US Navy spending more than $1 billion in munitions defending ships from Houthi drones and missiles between late 2023 and early 2025, firing roughly 200 SM-2, SM-3 and ESSM missiles at threats costing a tiny fraction of that. The argument for directed energy stopped being theoretical there.
Incursions over home installations did the rest. NORTHCOM reported hundreds over US bases, with Langley Air Force Base seeing drone activity for 17 consecutive days in December 2023. US air bases in the UK — Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Feltwell and Fairford — faced prolonged incursions in late 2024, prompting British troop deployments and emergency counter-UAS installation.
How Big Is the Counter-Drone Market?
Larger than any forecast said: more than $53 billion in publicly announced government counter-UAS contracts in the first eight months of 2026, by Unmanned Airspace’s count, against analyst forecasts that had the whole market at $20 billion by 2030. Be careful with market-size forecasts in this sector; they have been consistently wrong in the same direction.
The figure this guide used to lead with — MarketsandMarkets at $6.64 billion in 2025 growing to $20.31 billion by 2030 — has already been overtaken. Unmanned Airspace counted more than $53 billion in publicly announced government counter-UAS contracts in the first eight months of 2026 alone, after more than $29 billion in the first quarter.
Announced contracts and market revenue are not the same measure, and a multiyear award books over many years, so the two numbers are not directly comparable. But the gap is too large to be a definitional quibble. The forecasts were built before Ukraine normalised mass drone attack, before European rearmament, and before the FY2027 US budget request.
Treat any single market-size number here, including the ones above, as an indication of direction rather than a figure to plan against.
What to Watch Through 2027
LOCUST X3 deliveries. A production contract is not a fielded weapon. Whether AeroVironment delivers dozens of 30 kW lasers on schedule determines whether directed energy becomes a standing part of air defense or stays a decade-long demonstration.
The fiber-optic FPV problem. Fiber-optic links are immune to RF jamming and have spread well beyond Ukraine. HPM is the best current answer and Leonidas proved it in December 2025, but deployment scale is still small.
IFPC Increment 2 fielding, targeted around 2027. The interceptor competition decides whether low-cost autonomous intercept or missile-based defeat becomes the doctrine baseline for the next decade.
Whether SAFER SKIES certifications scale. 46 certified agencies at the rule’s start, and about 500 officers trained by August, against an expected 1,850 agencies is the bottleneck between a domestic counter-drone market that exists on paper and one that buys equipment. Watch the FBI training centre’s throughput.
Whether drone-on-drone survives contact at scale. Ukraine has proved the economics. Nobody has yet proved that autonomous interception works reliably at volume without blue-on-blue incidents or airspace deconfliction failures. The next 18 months of field experience will settle it.
Sources
- DHS Science and Technology Directorate counter-UAS IDIQ award, July 2026, as reported by Inside Unmanned Systems and Washington Technology.
- AeroVironment, LOCUST selected for the Army’s Enduring High Energy Laser programme, 2 September 2026.
- Motorola Solutions, completion of the D-Fend Solutions acquisition, 20 August 2026.
- SAFER SKIES Act, Title LXXXVI of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, signed 18 December 2025; DHS and DOJ interim final rule in force 1 July 2026.
- DefenseScoop, one year into the federal counter-drone task force, 24 August 2026, for the FBI’s training figure.
- Ondas, Sentrycs selected for Jacksonville Jaguars games, 7 August 2026.
- Unmanned Airspace’s running count of announced government counter-UAS contracts, 2026; Kyiv School of Economics data on drone engagements.
- FEMA, Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Grant Program, first-round awards of 30 December 2025.
- FEMA, FY2027 Counter-UAS Grant Program notice of funding opportunity, 16 October 2026, state and territory allocations in Appendix I.
- State counter-drone laws, from each legislature’s enacted text: New York Laws of 2026, Ch. 55, Missouri HBs 2637 and 3155, Indiana SEA 227; the others are linked from the table.
- Interceptor drones, from Ukrainian Ministry of Defence pages, UK government releases, US Army and JIATF-401 releases, the Federal Register notice of the Kuwait sale (Transmittal 26-74) and the makers’ own pages; each is linked from the table.
- Japan Ministry of Defense, Defence Minister’s press conference, 9 October 2026, for the SkyFall contract.
- German defence ministry, budget committee approves four procurements, 14 October 2026, for the net-firing interceptor drones.
- ARGUS Interception, A1-Falke delivered to the federal police, 2 February 2026.
Coverage

A Chinese Border County Is Buying Three Counter-Drone Lasers
Tashkurgan, which borders Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, awarded ¥10.99 million for three counter-drone stations; lasers are half of it.

German AI Firm Helsing Pitches Cheap Interceptor Missiles
No order for the two interceptors has been announced. Germany bought Helsing's HX-2 drone on contracts it can cancel at set milestones.

Unusual Machines Gets $16.9M Order From a Company It Funded
Unusual Machines put $30 million into Powerus in June. The order is about three times Powerus's revenue for the first half of 2026.

Pentagon Plans 25,000 BAE Counter-Drone Rocket Kits a Year
There is no contract or price yet. The seven-year framework waits on Congress, and the Navy's own 2027 request is 1,383 kits.

China's Police Are Buying Counter-Drone Lasers and FPVs
Police placed 31 of 132 drone purchases on China's national procurement site in one week. One expressway tender failed because every bid was DJI.

FEMA Opens $250M Counter-Drone Grants to All 56 States
Seven dollars in ten go out as a statutory floor. Jamming gear bought with any of it needs accredited police to switch it on.

Bundestag Clears Net-Firing Drones to Guard German Bases
The defence ministry named no maker, quantity or price. A German firm says its net drone already serves the Bundeswehr and the federal police.

Raytheon's $729M Counter-Drone Award Adds Qatar and Jordan
Raytheon gave no split between the three buyers, and no matching award appears in the Pentagon's daily contract notices.

EU Adds €130M for Drones and Counter-Drone Gear at Borders
The money goes to border authorities in 16 member states and Norway from a home-affairs fund, not the defence budget. No country amounts were published.

JIATF-401 Committed $158M to Homeland Counter-Drone Gear
The task force's first-year review counts money and projects, not results: no systems fielded, sites protected or drones stopped.

US Bans Unauthorized Drone Flights Along the Mexico Border
One nautical mile deep and 400 feet high, the zone runs to 19 October 2027. Flights inside it need clearance from Customs and Border Protection.

France Awards €34M Counter-Drone Framework for Its Prisons
Two winners, four years, offers worth €12.5 million. The prison service counted about 5,000 drone flights or attempts in 2025, up from 868.

Japan Buys Ukrainian Interceptor Drones From SkyFall
Defence Minister Koizumi named no model, number or price. Japan sends Ukraine no weapons, but now buys one of its anti-Shahed drones.

Poland Seeks Interceptor Drones That Can Hit Helicopters
Makers have until 15 October to offer a 20 km interceptor flying 340 km/h or more, or a 4 kg one a soldier can carry.

Dallas Man Faces 8 Years for Drone Flights at Two Airports
Prosecutors say his drone crossed an active runway at Love Field one night and entered DFW's restricted airspace the next.

EU Pays €1.24B for Ukrainian-Made Drones and Interceptors
It is the fifth defence payment from the €90 billion loan, and €15.4 billion of this year's defence money is still unpaid.

Kuwait Is the Buyer Behind EOS's £370M Counter-Drone Deal
Britain named the customer. EOS's own filing says work cannot start until it posts a £74m bank guarantee and wins export licences.

Pentagon Picks Three Lasers and a Microwave for US Bases
A year-long trial at US bases follows February's El Paso airspace closure. The Pentagon has not said which weapon goes where, how many, or the cost.

DroneShield's $500m counter-drone deal is one of ten
The Army set $4.15 billion of counter-drone ceilings across ten firms on 28 September. About $50 million has been committed to them so far.

Dedrone wins first orders on DHS counter-drone contract
TSA and FEMA spent $6.8 million in the last three days of the fiscal year. One order buys a system built on rival Motorola's D-Fend.
Companies
AeroVironment
US manufacturer of small tactical UAS, loitering munitions and counter-UAS systems, transformed in scale by its 2025 acquisition of BlueHalo.
United States
Anduril Industries
US defense technology company building autonomous weapons, counter-UAS, and AI command software, and manufacturing them at its own Arsenal-1 plant in Ohio.
United States
Dedrone
US counter-drone company, now part of Axon, providing airspace security platforms for military bases, prisons, airports and critical infrastructure.
United States
Fortem Technologies
US counter-drone company producing radar detection and autonomous interceptor drones for airspace security at airports, stadiums and military sites.
United States
RTX Corporation
RTX is a US aerospace and defense company formed from the 2020 Raytheon–United Technologies merger, run as Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney and Raytheon.
United States
Axon Enterprise
US public-safety technology company selling TASER devices, body cameras and evidence software, now a big counter-drone and DFR vendor via Dedrone.
United States
D-Fend Solutions
Israeli counter-drone company, bought by Motorola Solutions in August 2026, whose RF cyber systems take control of rogue drones and land them.
Israel
DroneShield
Australian counter-drone company producing detection, tracking, and defeat systems for military, government, and critical infrastructure customers.
Australia
Funding
Series C
Sequoia Capital, American Strategic Technology Fund, Interlagos, Valor Equity Partners, Allen & Company, Thiel Capital, Spark Capital, Dylan Field
Neros TechnologiesGrowth
Dragoneer Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Disruptive, Iconiq, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorganChase, CPP Investments, General Catalyst, Plural, StepStone
HelsingUndisclosed
Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, NATO Innovation Fund, Project A, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, Advent, Döpfner Capital
STARKContracts
U.S. Army
L3Harris
Three-year contract from the Army's DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center to develop a long-range…
Powerus
Unusual Machines
Purchase order from Powerus Corporation for US-made drone components (motors, batteries, cameras and…
U.S. Navy
Boeing
Not-to-exceed IDIQ for system improvements, configuration development, integration, production…
U.S. Army
Raytheon
Counter-drone contracts for components of the LIDS system, built around the KuRFS radar and Coyote…
Government of Kuwait
MARSS
Nation-wide counter-drone system built around MARSS's NiDAR command-and-control software, with…