Rogue Drone Incidents Spells Good News for DroneShield

Recent events involving rogue drones have proven lucrative for Australian counter-drone firm DroneShield.

Following a purported assassination attempt in August against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the company received an order from an unnamed Central American government security agency for DroneShield’s two cornerstone products – the DroneSentry drone mitigation system and the DroneGun Tactical jammer

• DroneSentinel is a multi-prone detection product designed to locate rogue drones. The solution is aimed at customers unable to deploy jamming because of regulatory or operational restrictions.
• DroneSentry detects and neutralizes unmanned aerial bandits using jamming technology. The product is geared toward foreign clients – the product has not been authorized by the FCC and may not be sold or leased in the U.S. because it jams radio signals.

The announcement stated DroneShield’s ability to fulfill the order was subject to approval by the relevant (and unnamed) U.S. regulator due to the Central American nation’s allied ties. This week, the company announced approval has been granted.

Oleg Vornik, DroneShield’s CEO, commented:

“Drone misuse is a universal problem, and no government or corporate civil infrastructure operator is immune from it. Inaction is not an option, and the recent events at Gatwick Airport, during which a malicious drone operator shut down England’s second largest airport for approximately 48 hours using an off-the-shelf consumer drone, stranding 100,000+ passengers, and causing tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage, have brought this home to decision-makers around the world.”

In June, DroneShield scored a huge deal with a major Middle Eastern nation to provide counter-drone solutions.

The company received a $3.2 million order of 70 DroneGuns from an undisclosed “major Middle Eastern country allied with the Western governments.” The deal represented the largest ever for the company and its first multi-million-dollar order. A company statement says the order was the “largest known order of its kind in the industry to date, globally.

Currently, DroneShield provides detection coverage for the Boston Marathon. The company also scored a major European victory last year, protecting the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.

A recent study predicts the drone mitigation (or anti-drone) market will to grow to a billion-dollar industry within six years with predicted compound annual growth rate of 23.89 percent across 2018-22.