‘Star Wars in Australia’: This anti-drone laser system can hit targets the size of a 10-cent piece

A high-energy laser system capable of tracking incoming objects as small as a 10-cent piece is among the locally developed equipment being funded as part of $7 billion in federal government 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 by the ADF to repel against 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 further 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 powerful enough to burn through steel.

The rest of the funding is for SYPAQ Systems’ Corvo Strike, a quadcopter interceptor drone designed to track, target and destroy larger drones commonly employed on battlefields such as the Iranian-designed Shahed drones.

The government’s hope is that both the Fractl laser system and Corvo Strike interceptor drone will be integrated into the ADF as they become more advanced.

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 drones that have been used 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 cncrewed 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 uncrewed aircraft.

Counter-drone technologies also will have civilian applications, including protecting major events such as football grand finals and the 2032 Brisbane Olympics from attack.

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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