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A Sydney-based business that manufactures products to detect and jam enemy drones has agreed to a $900,000 contract with an undisclosed government agency in Asia, reportedly “allied with the West”.
DroneShield’s deal is thought to include providing the country with its one-handed, pistol-like “DroneGun MKIII” device that can make enemy drones fly back to their operator or land on the spot. It’s also able to shut down any live video the aircraft is shooting.
This is the latest of a number of contracts awarded by international customers, including a $1.8 million order from the US Department of Defense for DroneGun MKIIITM units and a $2 million European sale of DroneSentryTM fixed site systems.
DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik said this latest order reflects the company’s expanding global footprint.
“This order is important in several ways. It demonstrates the progression of the business from development of our product suite several years ago, to regular smaller orders, to periodic larger orders, to regular larger orders, which we anticipate to further increase in size over time,” he said.
“The substantial inventory balance that we have created over the last two years enables rapid fulfilment of these orders.
“Further, this order is a testament to the diversity of the DroneShield sales pipeline — with the last three larger orders being US, Europe and Asia-based.”
DroneShield also continues to build its Australian pipeline, which includes a two-year, $3.8 million electronic warfare contract.
Vornik went on to note the growing importance of counter-drone technology in the modern battlespace.
“As we are seeing in Ukraine, with the latest use of Shahed-136 drones by Russia, drone warfare continues to rapidly escalate, and government agencies globally are responding to this threat with acquisitions of counter-drone systems, where DroneShield is the global leader in the sector,” he said.
Australian Aviation also reported in June how DroneShield’s products were proving “quite effective” against Russian tech in Ukraine.
The business has been providing its products as part of a military aid contract, separate from the official Australian government aid.
Speaking on the use of drones in warfare, DroneShield chief executive Oleg Vornik told Sky News, “Drones, and small drones, in particular, were used in the … Armenia Azerbaijan conflict and the Syrian conflict.
“But interestingly, drones stayed off the front pages in those conflicts until the Ukrainian conflict came along and drones were front and centre.”
