Counterdrone Factbook

The Emerging Threat

Proliferation of Commercial Drones

The rise of drones is evident today, almost ubiquitous across industries. Today drones represent a greater than $4.4 Billion industry, with expectations of the industry reaching $64 Billion by 2025. Whether utilized for aerial mapping and photography, delivery services, disaster relief, performing security or agriculture operations, drone technology is being utilized in numerous positive ways. There is no doubt that drones are here to stay and will become an even more prominent fixture in the airspaces above us.

Increased Risk and Widespread Threat

The continued proliferation of drones or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) provides increased opportunities for beneficial uses, but equally presents increased opportunities for bad actors to leverage these capabilities to carry out less desirable operations.

Counterdrone or Counter-UAS as an industry is still a young concept, only emerging with any sophistication in the past few years. In such a short time, just as with the UAS industry itself, the need for counterdrone capabilities has expanded to essentially every industry. Military, law enforcement, prisons might be obvious markets for counterdrone, however increased activity and threats have airports, critical infrastructure, and energy producers worldwide vulnerable as well.

Notable Drone Incidents

News involving criminal activities utilizing drones populate the headlines on a near weekly basis. These stories range from clueless and careless operators obstructing emergency operations to more sinister attackers such as the drone strikes on oil fields and attacks on government buildings and personnel. In the last few years alone, there have been highly visible incidents on a global scale…Download the factbook to find out more.