Last October, Munich's airport went dark for hours. Not from weather, not from a cyberattack—drones. Unauthorized ones, spotted near the runways, triggering a cascade of flight cancellations that stranded thousands of passengers and cost the facility untold sums in lost revenue. Munich was hardly alone. Brussels had its own incident. So did Copenhagen. And Alicante. By early 2025, the list of European airports forced to halt operations over drone sightings had grown long enough that industry insiders stopped treating each event as an anomaly.
Then came February 2026 in Texas, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection dealt with laser incidents—likely from drones—that shut down airspace and summoned congressional investigators. The pattern had crystallized: unauthorized drones weren't some distant threat aviation experts worried about in white papers. They were here, recurring, expensive, and exposing vulnerabilities that adversaries with more sinister intent were undoubtedly studying.
Enter a small Scottish startup called DroneTector, armed with high-frequency radar technology and a founding team steeped in Oxford physics labs. They're betting they can solve a problem that's vexing everyone from airport security chiefs to NATO defense planners. Whether they can break through a market already crowded with defense giants and well-funded competitors is another question entirely.
Follow the Money (It's Enormous)
The counter-drone business, industry analysts will tell you, is somewhere between a gold rush and an arms race. Forecasts vary wildly, which itself reveals something. Fortune Business Insights projects the sector will climb from roughly $3 billion in 2025 to $16.5 billion by 2034—a 19.8% compound annual growth rate. Research & Markets thinks that's conservative, predicting an expansion north of $30 billion through 2035, landing at $36.4 billion with a 22% CAGR. Precedence Research splits the difference: $30.9 billion by 2035.
No one, in other words, knows exactly how massive this market will become. But everyone agrees on the trajectory. Defense ministries and government agencies remain the biggest buyers, naturally. Yet critical infrastructure operators and airport authorities represent the fastest-growing customer segments—a shift that makes intuitive sense once you consider the data.
Dedrone, one of the established players in the space, deployed a city-wide detection network somewhere in southern Europe that logged 120 to 200 drone alerts per day in 2025. On July 4 of that year alone, Dedrone's U.S. network picked up 33,708 drone flights, with 37% violating FAA guidance. That's not theoretical risk. That's operational chaos waiting to happen.
The threat profile is evolving, too. Ukraine's defense industry now mass-produces thousands of interceptor drones daily. Some of these use fiber-optic cables for control—meaning they can't be jammed by traditional electronic warfare systems. NATO has launched innovation challenges specifically targeting these "unjammable" platforms. Meanwhile, the cost-exchange problem looms: firing a $2 million Patriot missile at a $500 quadcopter doesn't scale, militarily or economically.
Why Radar Still Wins
Counter-drone systems typically stack multiple sensors: radio frequency analyzers to detect control signals, electro-optical and infrared cameras for visual tracking, acoustic arrays that listen for propeller noise, and—increasingly—correlation with FAA Remote ID broadcasts, now under full enforcement since March 2024. But radar anchors everything. The reason is physics.
Radar works in fog. It works at night. It works beyond the range human eyes or cameras can manage. When weather rolls in or darkness falls, optical systems lose effectiveness. RF detection only functions if the drone is actively transmitting. Radar just keeps tracking.
The industry's shift toward high-frequency millimeter-wave radar—think K-band (18-27 GHz), Ka-band (27-40 GHz), up through W-band (75-110 GHz)—reflects the specific challenge of spotting small, low-signature targets. Academic research published in journals like MDPI's Drones and Scientific Reports shows that micro-Doppler signatures at these frequencies enable reliable classification of drones versus birds, one of the sector's most persistent false-positive problems. Rotating propellers create distinctive frequency modulations that machine learning algorithms can identify with considerable accuracy.
Higher frequencies bring trade-offs. Weather attenuation becomes significant: studies document approximately 0.8 to 9 dB per kilometer at 94 GHz depending on rain intensity, while E-band systems can lose roughly 9.7 dB over just one kilometer in heavy precipitation (20 mm/h). This is why networked coverage and multi-sensor fusion have become baseline requirements. You need overlapping radar zones and the ability to hand off tracks to electro-optical sensors for visual confirmation. One sensor alone won't cut it anymore.
Three PhDs and a Radar System
Thomas Doherty, Matthew Moore, and Jordina Francès de Mas incorporated DroneTector in Scotland in November 2023. On paper, it's a formidable technical team. Doherty holds a DPhil in Atomic and Laser Physics from Oxford, where he's a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow—not a credential you collect casually. Moore completed his PhD in Physics at St Andrews with a dissertation focused specifically on millimeter-wave radar for drone detection and micro-Doppler simulation; he has a paper accepted at RadarConf, the field's leading conference. Francès de Mas earned her PhD in Computer Science specializing in automated reasoning, the kind of expertise that matters when you're building algorithms to separate genuine threats from false alarms.
Their positioning is straightforward, at least in principle: high-frequency radar systems engineered to detect and track hostile drones, with particular emphasis on what their Y Combinator W26 batch profile calls "even the most challenging low-signature targets," including nano drones. Their website promises capabilities across three customer segments—airports, critical infrastructure, defense—with a four-part value proposition neatly packaged: detect, track, identify, integrate.
In a promotional video circulated on LinkedIn during their YC batch, the founders claim their system can track up to 500 targets simultaneously with "near-perfect accuracy" at determining which targets are actually drones versus birds or other airborne objects. Demos and pre-orders are open, they say, though specific pricing, frequency bands, and detailed technical specifications remain undisclosed. Which is perhaps understandable for a stealth-mode startup, but also makes independent assessment difficult.
What DroneTector does have is institutional credibility. NATO's Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) selected the company for its 2026 cohort under the Autonomy & Unmanned Systems category, describing their technology as "high-resolution sensors to detect and track small drones." That's a meaningful validation signal in a market where government procurement drives much of the revenue and where NATO endorsement opens doors across European defense ministries.
Still, endorsement and deployed systems are different things.
The Incumbents Aren't Sleeping
DroneTector is entering a market where established players have multi-year head starts and contracts that run into the hundreds of millions. Raytheon Technologies, through its SRC subsidiary, holds a U.S. Army contract worth up to $5.04 billion through 2033 for the Coyote counter-UAS interceptor and KuRFS radar—the backbone of the Army's Layered Integrated Defense System architecture. That's not vaporware. That's production-scale hardware with demonstrated capabilities in field trials, including successful tests against multiple simultaneous drone threats.
Echodyne pioneered metamaterial electronically scanned array (MESA) technology, which delivers phased-array radar performance without traditional phase shifters—enabling what the company's CEO has described as sub-$50,000 radar units for certain missions. Their EchoGuard and EchoShield systems are deployed in U.S. Customs and Border Protection pilots, participated in DARPA's Aerial Dragnet tests in San Diego, and integrate with airport perimeter security through partnerships with firms like SRI International.
Fortem Technologies combines its TrueView active electronically scanned array radars with the DroneHunter autonomous interceptor under a SkyDome command-and-control umbrella. The system is reportedly operational in Ukraine, the Middle East, and along the U.S. border—hard operational environments that test whether technology actually works or merely looks good in PowerPoint decks.
Europe has its own roster of serious players. HENSOLDT is tripling production of its Spexer radar family, which integrates with German Skyranger and Nordic NNbS short-range air defense systems. Blighter's A400 and A800 series use Ku-band electronically scanned FMCW radar with algorithms specifically tuned to suppress bird clutter. QinetiQ's Obsidian radar offers 360-degree mobile coverage with AI classification. Israel Aerospace Industries' Drone Guard combines ELM-2026 series 3D radar with electro-optical sensors and communications intelligence in an integrated package.
Then there's Dedrone, which Axon acquired in October 2024 for approximately $391 million in total consideration, according to SEC filings. That deal consolidated one of the largest independent counter-UAS sensor networks under a public company with deep relationships throughout law enforcement. DroneShield has emerged as the reference pure-play public company in the sector, while Picogrid—also in NATO DIANA's 2026 cohort—is building the ID2 platform as software-centric command-and-control middleware.
These aren't garage startups fumbling with prototypes. They're companies with operational deployments, multi-year customer relationships, and documented performance data. Breaking in requires either dramatic performance advantages, compelling price points, or solving problems the incumbents haven't adequately addressed. Preferably all three.
Where Theory Meets Reality
The gap between laboratory specifications and field performance is where counter-UAS companies either prove themselves or quietly disappear. TSA's drone detection initiative at Los Angeles International Airport, launched in August 2022, used a multi-sensor approach specifically because no single technology proved reliable enough in isolation. Echodyne's integration with SRI's perimeter intrusion detection systems demonstrates one viable path: plugging radar into existing security infrastructure rather than demanding expensive rip-and-replace installations.
Airport deployments face particular operational pressures. You need extremely low false-alarm rates, because shutting down runway operations based on phantom detections carries enormous financial and reputational costs. You need positive identification to distinguish drones from birds, aircraft on approach, helicopters, and even ground vehicles that can sometimes generate radar returns. You need weatherproof performance—airports can't simply disable airspace monitoring when rain or fog rolls in. And increasingly, you need integration with FAA Remote ID systems and coordination with federal authorities who hold the legal mandate to neutralize threats. Airports themselves generally cannot jam or kinetically engage drones under current U.S. law, a constraint that shapes system requirements.
Critical infrastructure deployments—think power substations, ports, water treatment plants—present different trade-offs. Perimeter ranges are typically shorter, but clutter from industrial equipment and metal structures creates challenging multipath environments where radar returns bounce unpredictably. Dedrone's southern European deployment handling 120 to 200 alerts daily suggests these systems generate substantial alarm volumes that require filtering, correlation, and ultimately human judgment.
Military and government buyers operate with different requirements entirely. The U.S. Army's successful multi-drone trials with the Coyote Block 3NK system point toward swarm defense scenarios where tracking 500 simultaneous targets—DroneTector's claimed capability—becomes operationally relevant rather than marketing exaggeration. Ukraine's experience, with interceptor drones destroying roughly a third of Russian air threats according to military commander statements, validates the low-cost-effector approach. But those interceptors need precise radar cueing to work.
What Reshapes the Market
Several inflection points will reshape this landscape between now and 2030, assuming the technology and threat environment continue evolving at current pace.
First: regulation. The U.S. Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act, currently moving through Congress, would extend federal C-UAS authorities through October 2030 and includes airport detection mandates plus pilot programs tied to major events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Europe's U-space framework, with network identification and direct remote ID requirements that took full effect in January 2024, creates a compliance infrastructure that detection systems must integrate with—or risk irrelevance.
Second: the technology maturity curve around directed energy weapons and low-cost interceptors. The UK's RF-DEW radio frequency weapon demonstrated swarm downing capability in 2025. The U.S. Army is fielding 20-kilowatt-class mobile lasers. These effectors need radar cueing to function effectively, creating what engineers call a "forcing function" for sensor performance. Ukraine's mass production of thousands of interceptor drones daily—at costs far more favorable than traditional missiles—represents an alternative path that still requires detection and targeting data.
Third: threat evolution. Fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones defeat traditional RF-based detection and electronic warfare, pushing the entire technological stack toward radar and electro-optical tracking. NATO's innovation challenges explicitly acknowledge this problem. As adversaries adapt, detection systems must evolve—likely through synthetic data training for automatic target recognition, improved micro-Doppler machine learning, and counter-countermeasures against low-emission profiles. It's an iterative game with no obvious endpoint.
The Path Ahead (It's Narrow)
For DroneTector, the path forward involves proving field performance against established players while navigating a market where buyers increasingly expect demonstrated deployments before signing contracts. Their NATO DIANA selection provides access to test facilities and European defense networks—real advantages, not just prestige. Their Y Combinator batch connects them to U.S. venture capital and potentially commercial customers who might be more willing to take risks on unproven technology than defense procurement offices.
The academic credentials of the founding team signal deep domain expertise in the relevant physics and algorithms. That matters. What they don't yet have—publicly, at least—is a disclosed customer, a demonstrated deployment, or published independent test data showing their system performs as claimed in operational conditions. In a market where buyers can choose from vendors with multi-year track records and reference customers willing to speak on the record, early credibility signals matter enormously.
The FAA's February 2026 recommendation, per Government Accountability Office reporting, that the agency define concrete milestones toward detect-and-avoid and two-way communications for beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations suggests regulatory pressure will continue pushing airports and critical infrastructure operators to instrument their airspace. Some of them will buy from the incumbents—Raytheon, Echodyne, HENSOLDT, companies with established relationships and proven systems.
Perhaps some will bet on the new entrant with the advanced physics credentials and NATO backing. The $30 billion question—the one that determines whether DroneTector becomes a case study in successful disruption or a cautionary tale about entering crowded markets too late—is how many.
