Australia has more than doubled its planned counter-UAS investment for the Australian Defence Force, allocating up to AUD 7 billion over the next decade under the 2026 Integrated Investment Program — part of a broader AUD 22 billion commitment to drone, counter-drone, and autonomous systems technologies that represents what Canberra is calling the largest peacetime increase in defense spending in the nation’s history.
As an initial step, the government announced two contracts for domestically developed C-UAS platforms awarded through the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator’s Mission Syracuse program, which launched in May 2025 to accelerate sovereign counter-small UAS capability for the ADF. AIM Defence received AUD 21.3 million to advance its Fractl high-powered laser system, designed to defeat both individual drones and swarms. According to the ASCA program page, the portable directed energy system can track objects as small as a 10-cent coin at more than 100 kph and is powerful enough to burn through steel. The investment is intended to transition Fractl from low-rate production to a system capable of mass manufacture for the ADF and allied customers. SYPAQ Systems received AUD 10.4 million to develop Corvo Strike, a kinetic interceptor drone designed to track, target, and destroy larger UAS of the type increasingly encountered on contemporary battlefields. Both systems will be integrated into the ADF’s existing command and control architecture under the LAND 156 program.
“Mission Syracuse will exploit Australian industry’s world leading expertise in kinetic and directed energy to find, fix, track, target and engage Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles,” said Major General Hugh Meggitt, Head of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator. “It will significantly enhance the ADF’s ability to counter the threat posed by UAVs employed by malicious actors, domestically and abroad.”
The paired investment — directed energy against swarms and small UAS, kinetic intercept against larger platforms — reflects the threat segmentation driving allied C-UAS procurement globally, with Australia’s unique geographic context adding emphasis on longer-range and larger drone threats alongside the small UAS problem.
