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Updated April 21, 2026 — 4:25pm,first published 3:48pm
A high-energy laser system capable of tracking incoming objects as small as a 10-cent piece is among the locally developed equipment funded as part of $7 billion the federal government is spending on drone-killing technology over the next decade.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy announced on Tuesday that, as part of the government’s national defence strategy, investment in counter-drone capabilities over the next 10 years will more than double from the $3 billion forecast two years ago.
The conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have highlighted the pivotal role that drones are playing in modern warfare, and the need for the Australian Defence Force to rapidly improve its ability to both launch, and defend against, drone attacks.
Conroy said that the government was moving to the next stage of Mission Syracuse, a project designed to develop locally made technologies that can be used to repel drone attacks.
“What we’re seeing here would once be thought of in movies like Star Wars or other science fiction,” he said at an event in Melbourne.
“Star Wars is happening right now in Australia.”
Under the plan, the government’s Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) will invest $30 million in Australian firms AIM Defence and SYPAQ Systems to develop their emerging counter-drone technologies.
The funding for AIM Defence is intended to enhance the combat-readiness of its high-powered counter-drone laser system, known as Fractl, which is designed to deter individual drones and swarms of smaller drones.
Conroy said the technology was capable of tracking objects as small as a 10-cent piece travelling at more than 100km/h and was powerful enough to burn through steel.
The rest of the funding is for SYPAQ Systems’ Corvo Strike, a quadcopter interceptor drone built to track and destroy larger drones such as the Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
The Shahed kamikaze-style drones cost around $70,000 each to make and have been used to great effect by Russia in the invasion of Ukraine, and by Iran in its fight against the United States and Israel.
“This is about protecting our warfighters and making sure drones don’t get anywhere near them,” Conroy said.
He said militaries were using $3 million missiles to take out $100,000 drones, emphasising the need to develop cheaper and more targeted counter-drone technologies.
Sypaq Systems, which is based in Melbourne, became well known for creating cheap, lightweight cardboard dronesused by Ukraine to defend against Russia.
ACSA boss Hugh Meggitt said the investment would “exploit Australian industry’s world-leading expertise in kinetic and directed energy to find, fix, track, target and engage uncrewed aerial vehicles”.
The $7 billion of spending on counter-drone technology comes on top of the up to $15 billion in uncrewed systems such as the locally made Ghost Shark underwater drone and Ghost Bat aircraft.
Counter-drone technologies will also have civilian applications, including protecting major events such as football grand finals.
The government is mandating that Defence’s counter-drone contracts include civilian capabilities to shield Olympic sites from attack.
Two main forms of technology are used to counter drone attacks. As drone expert Jamey Jacob explained in a piece for The Conversation, directed energy systems use high-energy lasers or microwave beams to disable drones, including by overheating them.
Kinetic systems, by contrast, involve physically intercepting drones to neutralise them by using net-carrying interceptor drones or more traditional projectile weapons that shoot them out of the sky.
Former senior Defence Department official Michael Shoebridge last week said that the government’s new spending plan provides “very thin gruel” for drones and counter-drone systems, with just $3 billion allocated over a decade for smaller uncrewed systems.
Shoebridge, an analyst with the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank, said that “any idea that the ADF is embracing the need to have thousands of cheap drones of diverse types or large numbers of dispersed cheap counter drone defences to cover its forces and maybe even vulnerable civilian facilities or populations is plain wrong”.
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