AIM Defence, creators of Australia’s first laser-based counter-drone system, have been contracted by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to build a world-first, deployable Directed Energy (DE) System for ongoing counter-drone testing and evaluation. The $4.9 million contract represents the first time the ADF has acquired a directed energy prototype for ongoing field-based counter-drone trials.
AIM Defence’s Fractl:2 DE system is powerful enough to burn through steel, and precise enough to track and shoot down a drone travelling at 100km/hour — from kilometres away. Portable and battery powered, Fractl:2 can shoot down over 50 drones per charge and can be plugged into a wall socket for continuous operation. It has the added advantage of near-zero usage cost as light-based energy replaces ammunition.
“Countering drones and other autonomous weapons systems has emerged as one of the most critically needed capabilities for militaries worldwide. For the past four years AIM Defence has been working with Australia’s defence innovation ecosystem to build a cost-effective, high-precision and deployable directed energy system. Fractl:2 is the culmination of that effort,” AIM Defence Co-founder Jessica Glenn said.
The Fractl:2 relies on AIM Defence’s novel, enhanced eye safety tactical DE laser which limits the blinding risk associated with typical one-micron systems — making it vastly safer in the field than comparable High Power Laser (HPL) systems. To date, DE systems have had limited adoption due to the difficulty of safely using high-powered lasers in proximity to personnel and civilians. AIM Defence’s focus is on reducing those risks so that directed energy systems can be safely used in built-up environments and operational theatres.
“We have successfully demonstrated over 200 drone defeats both indoors and outdoors over the last two years, each time improving the Fractl capabilities and learning how to safely deploy directed energy. By having this focus we’ve been able to engineer our 1-micron Fractl:1 system to be orders of magnitude safer than other DE systems. The evolution of Fractl to the Fractl:2 variant reduces the collateral hazard again, by a factor of 100. This makes it the safest and most deployable High Power Laser system in the world, by quite a margin.” AIM Defence Co-founder Dr Jae Daniel said.
AIM Defence expects Fractl:2 to be in the hands of ADF operators by mid-2024.
For Editorial Inquiries Contact:
Editor Kym Bergmann at kym.bergmann@venturamedia.net
For Advertising Inquiries Contact:
Director of Sales Graham Joss at graham.joss@venturamedia.net
About time some attention was paid to counter drone defence
Absolutely! About time. EOS also has some very effective counter-drone solutions being used by Ukraine and others – but not by the ADF.
What the ! Finally acquiring Anti Drone Capability and actually buying Australian. Maybe there is hope yet , I sincerely hope this gets done quickly before CASG and the DoD stuff it up..
Drone Shield have been around for a while and are very successful in the USA. Wonder why we don’t see them here so much?
The article says this is ADF’s first C-UAV directed energy acquisition, but I thought ADF had contracted EOS a while ago to build a prototype of their TITANIS laser C-UAV system. Whatever happed to that I wonder. Or is it plodding along at a snail’s pace.
I’ll check, but I think EOS is self-funded. Defence threw about $13 million at Qinetiq at some stage for something very similar.