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Counter-UAS in Europe: market, programmes and industrial base

Detection radars, jammers, interceptor drones and directed energy: who pays for counter-UAS in Europe, who builds it, and what the public record actually establishes. Analysis as of 19 August 2026; updated as the record changes.

What counter-UAS covers

Counter-UAS (C-UAS) is the chain that detects, tracks, identifies and defeats small unmanned aircraft. NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence Centre of Excellence defines a C-UAS system as one “capable of lawfully and safely disabling, disrupting, or seizing control of an unmanned aircraft system” (IAMD COE). In procurement practice the market has three layers: sensing — radar, radio-frequency detection and direction finding, electro-optical/infrared, acoustic; effectors — jamming, protocol takeover and spoofing, guns and missiles, interceptor drones, net capture, and directed energy (laser, high-power microwave); and the command-and-control layer that fuses the sensors and assigns the effectors.

NATO’s Joint Air Power Competence Centre splits the problem into a preventive phase (deterrence, suppression, avoidance) and a reactive one (detection, decision, neutralisation), and notes that the size, altitude and speed of small UAS make detection “extremely difficult” for air defences built against aircraft (JAPCC, 2021). One honesty note: no single official EU or NATO document enumerates the sensor-and-effector taxonomy above — it synthesises JAPCC, IAMD-COE and EDF call language, which is also how buyers specify programmes.

Two years of incursions: the demand is documented, not forecast

The demand behind this market is not a projection; it is a dated record. Since late 2024, drones have closed European airports, crossed a NATO border in numbers, and loitered for nights over nuclear-capable air bases. In August 2026 the pattern escalated from surveillance to attempted attack: an FPV drone carrying roughly 800 g of plastic explosive struck an Antonov An-124 at Leipzig and failed to detonate, hours before a Boeing 757 collided with a second drone on go-around (incident record). Germany’s interior minister called it a “new quality of danger”; Stars and Stripes reports a systematic Russian drone campaign probing European bases that store US nuclear weapons (2 Jul 2026).

WhenWhereWhat the record shows
20–24 Nov 2024RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Feltwell (UK)Repeated drone swarms over three bases used by the US Air Force; a KC-46A diverted; never attributed (Air Force Times)
10 Sep 2025PolandAbout 21 Russian drones entered Polish airspace; at least 3 shot down — the first downing of Russian drones over NATO territory; Article 4 invoked (Arms Control Association)
22 Sep 2025Copenhagen & OsloCopenhagen Airport closed ~4 hours over drone sightings; Oslo airspace ~3 hours the same night (Al Jazeera)
24–25 Sep 2025Aalborg (DK)Airport closed after repeated drone observations (2025 sightings record)
2 Oct 2025MunichFlight operations suspended overnight after multiple sightings (PBS)
Sep–autumn 2025Stockholm ArlandaAt least four drones halted flights for hours; diversions to Göteborg and Nyköping (CTIF)
31 Oct–2 Nov 2025Kleine Brogel (BE)“Larger-type” drones over the F-16 / US B61 base three consecutive nights; evaded detection and jamming; the defence minister called it “a clear mission” (Defense News)
6–7 Nov 2025Brussels & LiègeOvernight disruption at both airports over suspected drones (2025 sightings record)
4–5 Aug 2026Leipzig/HalleExplosive-laden FPV struck an An-124 without detonating; a 757 collided with a second drone and diverted (incident record)
8 Aug 2026Bundeswehr base, western GermanyTwo drones observed two days after Leipzig (Euronews)

The public money: EDF, EDIP and the “drone wall”

European C-UAS R&D has a paper trail. The flagship was JEY-CUAS under EDIDP-2020: a €15 million programme (EU contribution up to €13.5M), Leonardo-led with about 40 partners from 14 countries, closing with a live demonstration in Italy in April 2024 (Commission factsheet, final demo).

In April 2026 the Commission announced €1.07 billion for 57 EDF-2025 projects “supporting European Readiness Flagships”, drones and counter-drone included (DG DEFIS, 15 Apr 2026). Trade press reads the research strand less generously: roughly €20M of the €1bn research envelope went to C-UAS detection under the SENS topic, with no dedicated mitigation line (Unmanned Airspace — commentary, not an official figure).

EDIP — the EU’s first defence-industrial programme — entered into force in late December 2025 (published dates differ between 18 and 30 December); its first work programme of about €1.5 billion produced calls published on 31 March 2026, the first closing in October 2026 and the second in February 2027, open to member states, Norway and Ukraine (DG DEFIS, Council). The two directly counter-UAS calls open today carry €90M and €80M — they are in the live table below with their real deadlines.

The “drone wall” became the European Drone Defence Initiative (EDDI) in the Commission’s Defence Readiness Roadmap: launch in Q1 2026, “initial capacity” by end-2026, full functionality by end-2027, member states leading (EPRS, Oct 2025; ESD, Mar 2026). Independent commentary disputes the tangible progress ten months in (DroneXL/Franke, Jul 2026). Both positions are on the record; what is verifiable is the funded money above and the procurement below.

NATO’s venture arm co-led a €30M Series A in the German interceptor maker TYTAN (NIF); DIANA’s 2026 cohort is its largest at 150 companies (DIANA). National programmes are where the big figures sit: Poland’s ~$4.2bn SAN counter-drone shield, prime Kongsberg with PGZ, initial capability targeted before end-2026 (Inside Unmanned Systems); Germany’s February 2026 Bundestag authority for the Bundeswehr to down drones over German territory (Militarnyi) plus a €490M MBDA short-range anti-drone missile programme (Nov 2025); the UK’s £316M DragonFire laser order with first destroyer fit by 2027 (Defense News) and Thales’s RFDEW trials that downed 80+ drones at ~13p per shot (Apr 2025); France’s PROTEUS 20mm system (~50 units by end-2026), a counter-UAS Serval variant from 2028, and a detection network built on 19,700 telecom towers (Army Recognition, 2026); Sweden’s ~SEK 650M Giraffe 1X order (FMV, Dec 2025); and the five-nation LEAP initiative (UK, FR, DE, IT, PL, February 2026) for low-cost effectors and autonomous platforms (Unmanned Airspace).

Open EU callProgrammeIndicative budgetDeadline
Counter-drone systemsEDF€90,000,0002026-10-13
Unmanned systems and counter-unmanned systemsEDF€80,000,0002027-02-16

Directly counter-UAS calls only, generated live from DFM’s funding database — the same nightly ingest of the EU Funding & Tenders Portal behind the DFM funding calendar. Past deadlines drop out automatically; programme-envelope amounts are omitted rather than shown as call budgets. Adjacent drone and swarm topics: see all open calls.

Who builds it in Europe

Primes and integrators. Rheinmetall’s Skyranger 30 anchors the gun-based layer — the Netherlands ordered it for just under €1bn in December 2025 (Defense News); Hensoldt supplies its SPEXER 2000 radars under a framework running into the 2030s and sells the Xpeller C-UAS suite (Hensoldt; DFM file, 17pp). Saab’s Giraffe 1X radar won US Army, Belgian and Swedish orders in 2025 (Army Technology). Thales built the UK’s RFDEW demonstrator; Leonardo led JEY-CUAS with Indra among the key partners (Indra); MBDA holds the DragonFire and DefendAir programmes and invests in CerbAir; Diehl unveiled the Garmr modular counter-UAV system in 2026 (Army Recognition; DFM file, 15pp); Kongsberg is prime on Poland’s SAN; QinetiQ’s US arm took a $41M US Army C-UAS integration task order in May 2025 (PRNewswire; DFM file, 19pp).

The German-speaking cluster. TYTAN Technologies took the NIF-backed €30M Series A, a multi-hundred-million-euro German interceptor contract, and an MoU with Hensoldt targeting up to 3,000 interceptors a month by end-2026 (defence-industry.eu). Alpine Eagle raised €10.25M for its Sentinel air-to-air system (tech.eu; DFM file, 11pp); Argus Interception fields the A1-Falke net-capture interceptor (DFM file, 30pp); Aaronia’s AARTOS family rides its spectrum-analysis backbone (DFM file, 13pp); Walaris works the perimeter-surveillance niche (DFM file, 16pp). Dedrone — German-founded, now part of Axon after a ~$391M buyout (Axon, Oct 2024; DFM file, 18pp) — anchors the C2/RF-sensing end.

Nordics and Baltics. MyDefence (DK) won a $26M US Army order for wearable detector-jammer kits (Defense Post; DFM file, 11pp); Weibel Scientific took its largest-ever order, >DKK 500M of radars from Kongsberg (Weibel; DFM file, 24pp); Terma bought OSL to extend its counter-drone stack (DFM file, 5pp). Robin Radar (NL) is delivering 100 IRIS radars to the Dutch MoD (Robin Radar; DFM file, 13pp). In the Baltics: Origin Robotics (LV) unveiled the BLAZE interceptor (DFM file, 28pp), Frankenburg Technologies (EE) pairs its Mark I interceptor missile with a planned PGZ plant in Poland (Sifted; DFM file, 26pp), Marduk’s Shark EO/IR system trialled with the Swedish armed forces (DFM file, 14pp), DefSecIntel’s Eirshield is in use in Ukraine and cited in NATO-airspace debates (Defense News; DFM file, 31pp), and Rantelon supplies anti-drone RF systems (DFM file, 35pp). Finland’s Sensofusion sits in the same detection tier (DFM file, 14pp).

France, Benelux, UK and the rest. CerbAir (FR) — RF detection and neutralisation, MBDA among its investors (Unmanned Airspace; DFM file, 30pp); CILAS builds the French directed-energy line (DFM file, 15pp); Aeraccess covers GPS-denied tactical drones and counter-UAS (DFM file, 33pp). AnGard (NL) works high-power microwave (DFM file, 12pp); Senhive (BE) does sensor-fusion detection. In the UK, OpenWorks Engineering’s SkyWall net-capture family added a vehicle-mounted variant (OpenWorks; DFM file, 18pp), Blighter sells e-scan C-UAS radar (DFM file, 14pp) and DroneTector high-resolution detection radar (DFM file, 16pp). Netline (DFM file, 14pp) and Sentrycs work the EW/protocol-takeover end; Mecanus (ES) applies AI counter-drone protection to armoured vehicles (DFM file, 16pp). DroneShield — Australian, with European production live since 2026 — booked A$23.2M of Benelux military orders in July 2026 (Proactive; DFM file, 15pp).

For the architecture-level view, four DFM analyses map the field as a whole: Europe’s Counter-UAS Industrial Architecture (16pp), Counter-UAS in Europe: the Anti-Drone Market, Contracts and Companies (18pp), Interceptor Drones and Europe’s Anti-UAS Architecture (12pp) and Europe’s Evolving C-UAS Capabilities and the Quest for a “Drone Wall” (43pp).

The market numbers, side by side

Ten published sizings of what is nominally the same market put its base-year value anywhere between about $2.0 billion and $14.4 billion — a seven-fold spread — while their growth rates cluster tightly at 22–28% a year. The disagreement is scope, not trajectory: narrow “anti-drone” definitions count dedicated detection and jamming kit; broad “counter-UAS” definitions fold in short-range air-defence guns, missiles, directed energy and C2. The same firm can sit on both sides: MarketsandMarkets publishes a $4.48bn “anti-drone” market (2025) and a $9.17bn “counter-UAS” market (2026).

Two further reasons to treat every figure below as directional. Most vendors put North America at 43–45% of the market, yet Europe’s programme-of-record procurement — Poland’s ~$4.2bn SAN alone, the Netherlands’ just-under-€1bn Skyranger order — suggests the published regional splits undercount European spending. And a trade tally put worldwide government C-UAS spending at $29bn in the first quarter of 2026 alone (Unmanned Airspace) — above most vendors’ full-year estimates for the entire market. No vendor publishes a reconciliation, and no Europe-only sizing with a stated methodology was publicly verifiable as of this analysis.

PublisherMarket as titledBase yearForecastCAGR
MarketsandMarketsCounter-UAS$9.17B (2026)$29.70B by 203126.5%
MarketsandMarketsAnti-drone (separate report)$4.48B (2025)$14.51B by 203026.5%
Fortune Business InsightsCounter-UAS$14.41B (2026)$55.25B by 203422.4%
Grand View ResearchAnti-drone$2.45B (2024)$10.58B by 203027.2%
Market.usCounter-drone$2.61B (2024)$30.6B by 203427.9%
IMARCAnti-drone$2.45B (2025)$15.62B by 203422.8%
Mordor IntelligenceAnti-drone$2.47B (2026)$8.42B by 203127.8%
Precedence ResearchAnti-drone$2.97B (2025)$30.91B by 203526.4%
BIS ResearchCounter-UAV$4.93B (2025)$36.42B by 203522.1%
Market Research FutureCounter-UAS$2.01B (2025)$18.29B by 203524.7%

Figures as published by each vendor, collected 19 August 2026. Grand View’s page could not be fetched directly (figures from its press release); MarketsandMarkets’ August 2026 press release re-issues its July figures. DFM does not endorse any of these sizings.

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The sourced DFM analyses this briefing draws on — each a licensed PDF with every source cited, listed here as the page's bibliography.

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