Cost-efficient anti-drone technology

Cheap first-person-view (FPV) and commercial quadcopters have pushed the Ukrainian defenders into a permanent economy-of-force problem: a few hundred dollars of airframe and explosives can burn through missiles worth hundreds of thousands. Those that are adapting fastest are combining three layers: 1) find and fix with low-cost sensing, 2) suppress with electronic warfare, and 3) finish with inexpensive effectors rather than missiles. The European Union has now moved to coordinate a continent-wide version of this logic—networks of sensors, jammers and point-defence weapons—under a proposed European Drone Defence Initiative, with initial capabilities aimed for 2026–27. 

What is working now (and why it is affordable)

• Programmable cannon rounds instead of missiles.

Germany’s Skynex and legacy Gepard have shown that 35 mm cannons firing AHEAD-type air-burst ammunition (that releases a series of projectiles just ahead of a target) can knock down Shahed-class one-way attack drones at a fraction of a missile shot, and the supply chain is ramping (Rheinmetall is delivering additional 35 mm stocks; Ukraine has begun operating Skynex batteries). This is the current poster child for cost-effective kinetic effect. 

• Cheap physical protection to deny the kill chain.

Because many FPV strikes occur at very low altitude over trenches, roads and vehicle hides, physical counter-measures—nets over roads and positions; overhead cover in trenches; and evolving ‘cope-cage’ armour on vehicles—are widespread and, crucially, scalable by non-specialists. Ukraine has strung netted “anti-drone corridors” over key routes; both sides keep upgrading cage designs; even Western forces are experimenting with “drone-age” field fortifications and top-attack add-on armour. These methods are not glamorous, but their cost per prevented kill is hard to beat. 

• Proliferated, modular jamming.

Frontline units increasingly use distributed electronic warfare (EW) to break the control, video, or global navigation satellite system (GNSS) links of FPV and reconnaissance drones. Ukrainian firms such as Kvertus and Piranha Tech field portable and stationary emitters; Ukraine is also networking “thousands” of EW nodes under systems like Atlas (a frontline "drone wall" electronic warfare system) to cover logistics hubs and front sectors. The point is coverage and redundancy rather than exquisite range—again, a matter of cost. 

• Low-end effectors and marksmanship aids.

Where jammers cannot finish the kill, inexpensive effectors do: shotguns, air-burst rifle optics, and remote weapon stations optimised for tiny, fast targets. Reports from the field continue to highlight the use of anti-drone rifles and jammer “guns” that are man-portable and cheap to sustain. 

• Smarter detection without gold-plating.

Passive RF listening, compact radars tuned for small RCS targets, and EO/IR watchers are being combined with AI rather than big-iron command suites. Examples include Ukrainian AI tools like Dropla’s Blue Eyes, which spots ambush drones from scout-UAV video in real time—a software-heavy, hardware-light approach that is fast to iterate and relatively cheap to roll out. 

What is being trialled and entering service

• Directed-energy weapons for the ‘many vs many’ fight.

Lasers and high-power microwave (HPM) promise a very low cost per shot and deep magazines—ideal against swarms—once they are rugged and integrated. The UK is expanding her DragonFire programme for naval deployment later this decade; France has commissioned a new high-power laser demonstrator; and the US Army has deployed multiple 50 kW DE M-SHORAD prototypes while shaping the next increments. On the HPM side, Epirus and General Dynamics have just unveiled a mobile “Leonidas AR” variant for counter-swarm defence, with Ukraine publicly signalling interest. Costs per engagement are orders of magnitude lower than missile shots, and there is no ammunition supply chain—only power. The constraints are weather/atmospherics (for lasers), integration, and unit cost until volumes increase. 

• Mobile gun-and-sensor turrets for manoeuvre units.

Expect more Skyranger-type 30/35 mm turrets with AESA (a multiple-beam radar) sensors and programmable ammunition on tracked or wheeled chassis, because they bring the economical AHEAD effect into the combined-arms fight. Rheinmetall’s recent Ukraine contract underscores demand for mobile, affordable shot density rather than exquisite missiles on every vehicle. 

• EU-level integration and shared warning.

Beyond national innovations, Brussels is trying to put together cross-border sensing, command links and rules to speed engagement and reduce duplication. If funding and politics hold, shared situational awareness and pooled effectors should lower average costs per intercept for critical sites (e.g. ports, refineries, rail hubs). 

Tactical and technical adaptations to watch

• The telemetry cat-and-mouse.

Because so many battlefield drones are adapted commercial types, access to vendor telemetry has mattered for detection. The discontinuation of use of DJI drones (Chinese made)—and the shift to encrypted protocols—have complicated some legacy detection methods, pushing militaries towards vendor-agnostic passive RF and sensor fusion (that combines radar and other forms of detection). That trend will accelerate. 

• Hardening of infrastructure and logistics.

Russia, Ukraine and NATO states are adding nets, cages and armour around depots and energy sites. This is mundane but necessary: it denies FPV drones the easy catastrophic result and forces attackers to spend more drones per target. 

• AI everywhere in the kill chain.

From cueing shooters with auto-track to filtering false positives in urban clutter, AI is already cutting operator workload and speeding engagements. Expect more on-edge models inside cheap EO/IR towers and quadcopters, trained on theatre-specific drone signatures and decoys. The ambition is to let a few soldiers manage dozens of sensors and guns without drowning in video. 

• Counter-swarm doctrine and ‘finishers’.

Even with good jamming, some drones will leak through. The cheapest finishing layers likely to scale are: programmable 30/35 mm cannons (land and naval), shotgun-class solutions for the last 100 metres, and, as they mature, lasers at tens of kilowatts for persistent site defence. HPM is the wild card for wide-area convoy and airfield protection if reliability and safety cases hold up. 

What this means for budgets and force design

The lesson from Ukraine and adjacent NATO exercises is that the best counter-drone posture is less a single system than a procurement style: buy many modest things that interlock, and iterate faster than the threat. That is why you see nets over roads, cages on vehicles, cannon with cheap programmable rounds, and swappable EW boxes at battalion level—then a handful of directed-energy units protecting the most critical nodes. The United Kingdom is explicitly shifting money into drones and lasers; the United States is reorganising short-range air defence around modular increments; and the EU is trying to pool costs for continental coverage. All three bet that software, power and ammunition-independent defences will bend the defender’s cost curve back down. 

Anticipated near-term breakthroughs (12–36 months)

1. Lasers on static and maritime sites reaching routine 10–20 km drone-kill envelopes in clear weather, with enough reliability to displace a large fraction of missile shots for site defence. 

   
   

2. HPM truck-mounts providing convoy and airfield bubbles against swarms, bought in small numbers first for high-value logistics. 

   
   

3. Wider deployment of mobile gun turrets with AI cueing and programmable ammunition in manoeuvre brigades, because they are the most affordable way to add dense, move-with-you fire. 

   
   

4. Theatre-wide EW networking—Atlas-style—so commanders can dial emissions up and down across thousands of emitters rather than rely on a few exquisite jammers. 

   
   

5. Institutionalised physical protection: standard nets, modular roof kits, and overhead armour as a line item in every engineer and logistics plan, not just ad-hoc innovation.