Commonwealth awards $16.9 million in contracts for counter-drone tech

The federal government has awarded $16.9 million in contracts to 11 vendors, five of them Australian, to rapidly deliver counter-drone technologies.

According to a statement from defence industry minister Pat Conroy on Thursday, the “rolling wave of contracts” is part of the LAND 156 program announced four months ago.

LAND 156 will see “some of the world’s most capable threat detectors and drone-defeating platforms” be rapidly introduced into service by the Australian Defence Force, said Conroy, including “use of high energy laser (HEL), RF jamming and kinetic countermeasure effectors” to neutralise drone threats.

Conroy added that $58 million had been invested in R&D and prototyping of drones across the last three years by the federal government, with a planned “more than $10 billion on drones over the next decade, including at least $4.3 billion on uncrewed aerial systems”.

“This funding will strengthen the sovereign Defence industry, with partners such as Droneshield, Sypaq Systems, AMSL Aero, Grabba Technologies and Boresight,” said Conroy.

“These capabilities will complement current in-service drones such as the Black Hornet, PUMA, Wasp, Skylark and R70 Skyranger, as well as those currently being introduced into service including the Switchblade 300, Insitu Pacific Integrator, and Quantum Systems Vector 2-in-1.”

Picture: credit Defence