IN DETAIL: DroneShield prepares LAND156 response

The drone threat facing modern defence forces won’t ever go away. The Australian Defence Force is preparing to meet this threat through Project LAND156 and Sydney-based DroneShield, which claims to be the best counter-drone company in the world, is preparing in turn for this opportunity.

Gregor Ferguson

DroneShield has built much of its reputation on its work overseas, protecting VIPs, deployed forces and infrastructure from surveillance and attack by Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) – or drones, if you prefer.  But, just quietly, it has also been working with the ADF and other Commonwealth security agencies since 2018 on projects SEA5011, LAND1508 and JP9380 and conducting joint R&D with companies such as Thales and agencies such as the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator, or ASCA.

Now the long-awaited opportunity to deliver a full Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System (C-UAS) and Situational Awareness system to the ADF is about to arrive.

The ADF’s Project LAND156 – Counter Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (C-SUAS) Project went live on 21 November. This is intended to develop and acquire a C-SUAS system for domestic and deployed or expeditionary use to protect buildings, headquarters, strike packages and expeditionary bases and nodes from UAS surveillance and attack. Defence’s definition of a properly integrated C-SUAS system has three principal lines of development effort: Sensors, Effectors and Command & Control.

On 21 November Defence released an Invitation to Register (ITR) for a C-SUAS Systems Integration Partner (SIP), leading eventually to a down-select of contenders who will each receive a Request for Tender (RFT). The ITR closes on 20 December. Interestingly, although the first stage in this project is now under way, there is no mention of it anywhere in the Integrated Investment Program (IIP) despite the threat posed by an increasing population of UASs in the hands of both terrorists and national defence forces. And there is no published budget for any phase of the Project.

Rather like it has done in Project AIR6500, the ADF is looking for a strategic partner who can handle the various contractors supplying specific capabilities. It is looking for a Systems Integration Partner to undertake market analysis, system design and implementation, manage and provide ongoing assurance of capability delivery across the LAND156 program. The SIP will also deliver options for a C-SUAS C2 system.

The RFT is expected to go out as early as January 2025 with an SIP selected by mid-year. The Project aims to achieve Capability Target State 1 (CTS1) – the fielding of a baseline C-SUAS capability by the SIP – by December 2025 and a complete Minimum Viable Capability (MVC) by December 2030. CTS1 will include sensors and effectors, naturally, but the SIP – essentially Defence’s strategic partner in this program – must also deliver a developmental C2 system capable of integrating all of the selected sensors and effectors and distributing engagement orders in both CTS1 and subsequent rounds, up to at least the MVC.

The ITR doesn’t state exactly how, or when, Defence – or the SIP –  plans to engage subsequently with suppliers of specific capabilities, but does state, “Australian small to medium enterprises will be encouraged to participate through engagement either with the Systems Integration Partner (SIP) or through the Defence innovation agencies. Innovation products which have been acquired through open and competitive processes and have been accepted as GFE, with all essential data, IP and licences, may be provided to the SIP for integration into the C-SUAS system.”

So ASCA and DSTG both have a role in developing the capabilities appropriate to LAND 156, as does the Army’s Robotic and Autonomous Systems Implementation & Coordination Office, or RICO as it is usually, mercifully, known.

The threat the ADF has identified is SUAS Group I and II platforms weighing less than about 25kg and with a maximum speed of less than 250kt, which can appear right across the battlespace with little or no warning. They can carry ISR and kinetic payloads and obviously have significant potential to degrade and disrupt the ADF’s ability to do its work.

What Defence is looking for is a low ‘cost per kill’, a low cognitive load and a low workload. It also wants low force signatures in all surveillance spectra, good coverage in both mobile and static settings even in complex terrain, and of course to avoid so far as possible the risk of fratricide – destroying friendly UASs.

Defence also wants its C-SUAS system to integrate with existing and planned capabilities such as Short-Range Ground Based Air Defence (SRGBAD) and Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD), as well as interoperability with both other Australian government C-SUAS and coalition C-SUAS efforts. And it doesn’t want so-called ‘vendor lock’ – being tied to a single supplier of equipment and services. It’s not clear

DroneShield believes it can offer both a strong and a sovereign capability based on what it believes is the world’s biggest C-SUAS development team.

By some estimates, nearly 80% of SUAS can be disrupted by jamming, and this is what DroneShield does: its passive omni-directional RfPatrol Mk 2 detects SUAS out to a range of as much as 4km while its directional DroneGun Mk4 jams the WiFi or GSM control and navigation signals controlling hostile SUASs out to a range of about 1km (a bigger version has a range of 2km). The DroneGun Mk4 can also handle swarms of SUASs because its effects are not focussed on a single target.

Depending on how they are designed the drones could then fly autonomously back to where they were launched or sink to the ground where they are – as long as the jamming signal is maintained. Either outcome is potentially exploitable by friendly forces.

DroneShield also has a range of Situational Awareness (SA) tools based around the RfPatrol Mk2 and DroneSentry-X Mk2 radars and displayed on the company’s DroneSentry-C2 Tactical system which employs ruggedised laptops. The SA tools (of which more below) can build up and monitor a real-time picture of UAS and SUAS activity in a specific area; the company also points out that it can integrate other sensors and effectors into the SA system to counter emerging generations of UAS and their control systems.

DroneShield’s R&D focusses on SA, C2 and ‘soft kill’ capabilities and particularly on jamming, the weapon of least regret. But the company says it can also integrate ‘hard kill’ systems such as the EOS Slinger, which uses direct-fire guns, or the AIM Defence Fractl high-power anti-drone laser. These can be used to counter UASs that don’t employ WiFi or GSM guidance and control signals – an increasing number of short-range UASs, for example, are using wire guidance, rather like MILAN or TOW anti-tank missiles, to prevent detection and jamming.

While much attention has been focussed on the company’s physical products, DroneShield actually describes itself as a software company that is enabled by hardware – a majority of its R&D goes into software and systems improvements and responding to new threats and contingencies. Its focus is on jamming hostile UASs, C2 (including SA), and systems integration – the hardware it employs is increasingly incidental, which means it is well placed to respond to the LAND156 ITR.

The company currently employs around 200 staff, of whom about 150 are engineers. This figure is expected to rise to 230 engineers by the end of 2025 in a total workforce of around 300. The R&D, design and final assembly of all of its products are undertaken in Sydney, though much of the manufacturing is done in Adelaide. It has a current capacity of about 3,000 RfPatrol units per year and about the same number of DroneGun Mk4s.

The company’s centre of gravity is in Sydney and there’s a good reason for that: the city’s workforce has a concentration of strengths in advanced electronics that isn’t available elsewhere.

Its products are mature and more than 95% of them are exported: they are deployed globally by the US Department of Defense, the UK Ministry of Defence, French Army, NATO and, of course, the Armed Forces of Ukraine where it has more than 1,000 DroneGuns and RfPatrols in service. Crucially, DroneShield’s products are not affected by the restrictive US ITAR regime: the company works with end users – it has an especially good relationship with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as one would expect – and is able to make rapid software changes in response to enemy adaptation and things like RF frequency changes in enemy UAS control systems.

However, its ability to do so is hard-won. When the company was formed in 2014 it was illegal even to own any kind of RF jammer or active radar in Australia, still less to build one. Much of its original equipment had to be built in South Korea as a result. DroneShield has worked collaboratively with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) so that it can now conduct through-air tests of jammers and radars at the company’s (very remote) test site in Australia and this gives it both sovereign control and a rapid response capability.

With Project LAND156 in its sights, DroneShield is building on its previous work for SOCOMD in Project LAND1508 in which it delivered a range of hand-held C-SUAS devices.

Its business model, especially for infrastructure protection, is now more sophisticated though it remains to be seen whether or not it can be implemented fully on Project LAND156. It is offering C-SUAS As A Service, which can include periodic upgrades – where it can, DroneShield upgrades all of its software-driven products every three months or so. The company has recognised that base protection – a simple name for fixed infrastructure protection – is a sub-set of perimeter protection, which is something the ADF understands and has traditionally done well. Much of the funding for perimeter protection comes from the ADF’s sustainment budget, rather than its capital equipment budget.

The company is currently drafting a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with services company Ventia. The Net Personnel and Operating Cost (NPOC) of new capital capabilities is a significant factor for the ADF and this MoA would see DroneShield installing an SA and C-UAS capability on a base, funded from the Sustainment budget, with Ventia responsible for monitoring the system, possibly from a remote site. DroneShield would be responsible for maintaining the system’s software and hardware.

In parallel, DroneShield would develop the system’s effectors and sensors, as it already does, integrate the C-UAS system, build the C2 system and conduct operator training.

Its architecture for doing all this is based, first, on its DroneSentry-C2 Enterprise system which is capable of managing multiple sites; this approach implements C-UAS As A Service with civilians monitoring multiple (and possibly remote) sites cost-effectively from a central HQ. This level of the architecture also includes, if desired, a link with Defence C2 assets such as IAMD.

At the Tactical level local ‘packages’ of C-UAS capability can be monitored in a static location using DroneSentry-C2 and, for mobile applications, the 46kg DroneSentry-X Mk2 (which was developed with support from the Defence Innovation Hub) as the primary sensor and effector – it has a detection range of more than 4km and a disruption radius of more than 1km..

At the Deployed level the company’s DroneSentry-X Mk2s can be tripod-mounted, along with active and passive sensors such as Echodyne’s EchoShield radar and the Teledyne FLIR Ranger HDC UC infrared sensor. The EchoShield and Ranger sensors can see long distances but in line of sight only. The company has nine separate sensors currently integrated; its roadmap has a further six sensors as integration targets and future options include CEA Technologies’ CEAFAR radars, the Silentium Defence passive radar and other sensors. The company reckons the average time taken for sensor integration is about 3 months.

Importantly, all of the C2 behind these products is the product of DroneShield’s own R&D and experience. The company’s software-based approach to its craft means that it has sovereign control over the software itself, can integrate new capabilities quickly and can respond quickly to contingencies and new threats.

With the highest-priority ADF bases, installation could begin within 6 months of procurement and installation would be complete on up to 104 bases within 18-24 months, the company says. Importantly for the ADF, emphasises DroneShield, the C2 system could be stand-alone or could feed into a larger battle management system or Common Operating Picture such as the IAMD system that the RAAF is procuring from Lockheed Martin under Project AIR6500.

This is a key step towards implementing the ADF’s planned Defence Targeting Enterprise which is more akin to a ‘kill web’ than some elaborate and never-quite-finished C4ISR system – basically, any sensor on the network can detect a target and engaging it will be the responsibility of whichever effector is within range and appropriate to the task. All it takes is suitable communications links between all of the nodes.

Not surprisingly, DroneShield was less than pleased when Defence announced it had awarded US firm Anduril Industries a $30 million contract to conduct a three-year C-UAS trial at RAAF Base Darwin, though Anduril already has C-UAS contracts with the US special forces community. DroneShield believes it could deliver what it understands is the same C-UAS effect an order of magnitude cheaper – and importantly, this would be a sovereign capability subject to regular software upgrades and with the ability for the end user to shape the development of the product.

It’s quite possible that the RAAF doesn’t really understand the capability that Australia has in DroneShield, though the Army certainly does. It’s also possible that the contract with Anduril was an opportunistic way of spending a bit of surplus cash at the end of the financial year.

Be that as it may, the main game for DroneShield is Project LAND156. Wining the SIP contract would signify that DroneShield is slowly becoming recognised as a software company as much as (and eventually more than) a hardware company. The influence of LAND156 on the company’s growth and development may be significant.