Drone Defence
The New Drone Defence Stack - PART 1
From Ukraine to Leipzig to Australia: The Drone Threat Has Moved Beyond the Battlefield
Recent incidents at Leipzig/Halle Airport and RAAF Base Williamtown point to a larger security challenge: the drone threat is moving from battlefields to the infrastructure nations depend on.
For much of the last four years, Ukraine has provided the world with a real-time view of how drones are reshaping modern warfare.
Now, the implications are moving far beyond the battlefield.
At Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport, an explosives-carrying drone was recently discovered inside a restricted area near Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft. U.S. intelligence has reportedly linked the incident to Russia, while German authorities have described it as an unprecedented threat.
Thousands of kilometres away, Australia is confronting a different version of the same problem.
Between July 11 and 13, multiple unidentified drones entered restricted airspace over RAAF Base Williamtown, home to Australia's F-35A Joint Strike Fighters and E-7A Wedgetail aircraft. The drones were detected but not actively neutralised, and their operators remain unknown.
The Williamtown incidents form part of a much wider trend. Australian Department of Defence data shows reported drone incursions at Defence sites increasing from 21 in 2022–23 to 60 in 2023–24 and 147 in 2024–25. That represents a sevenfold increase in just two years and provides useful context for why Australia is accelerating investment in counter-UAS capabilities.
Fig 1: Reported Drone Incursions at Australian Defence Sites
The numbers also illustrate a broader issue for critical infrastructure operators. As the frequency of incursions increases, the challenge extends beyond identifying individual drones. Security teams need persistent awareness and a way to distinguish, correlate and assess activity across increasingly complex environments.
Different countries. Different infrastructure. The same uncomfortable question:
Can critical infrastructure detect, understand and coordinate a response to an unfamiliar aerial threat quickly enough?
Ukraine changed the economics of the threat
One of the biggest lessons from Ukraine is that strategic disruption no longer necessarily requires an expensive aircraft or sophisticated conventional platform.
Relatively accessible unmanned systems have changed surveillance, reconnaissance and battlefield operations.
That fundamentally alters the security equation for airports, military installations, ports, energy facilities, logistics hubs and other critical infrastructure.
And the threat continues to expand.
On August 11, Romanian forces destroyed two unidentified drones found near the Neptun Deep offshore gas development in the Black Sea. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey had already expanded regional cooperation to include protection of critical infrastructure in the area.
Ukraine demonstrated what drones can do on a battlefield.
Leipzig, Williamtown and the Black Sea demonstrate why the same conversation is now reaching airports, military bases and energy infrastructure.
Detection is only the beginning
The natural response is to deploy more detection technology such as radar. RF sensing, cameras, identification systems, perimeter sensors, etc.
Undoubtedly, each can contribute valuable information. However, detecting an object is not the same as understanding a threat.
Operators need to determine what has been detected, correlate information from different systems, establish context and create a common operational picture quickly enough for authorised personnel to make decisions.
Increasingly, this is not simply a drone-detection problem. It is a command-and-control problem.
From individual sensors to a security ecosystem
Australia's response provides an indication of where the market is heading.
Under Project LAND 156, the Australian Defence Force evaluated 20 counter-UAS systems and selected eight for introduction into service. Australia's Defence Department describes the program as a rapidly procured suite designed to detect, disrupt and defeat emerging aerial threats.
More importantly, Australia has already demonstrated an integrated architecture combining a command-and-control system with multiple sensors and other components.
This points clearly in the direction of the future belonging to interoperable security ecosystems capable of bringing together different sources of intelligence.
That is the environment in which the combination of Inturai and DomeCommand becomes particularly relevant.
Inturai expands the sensing environment. DomeCommand brings command-and-control capabilities designed to turn multiple inputs into a more unified operational picture. The objective isn't simply more alerts; it is better situational awareness.
Sense -> Correlate -> Understand -> Decide.
The drone war may have accelerated in Ukraine, but the infrastructure-security implications are now global and Leipzig and Williamtown suggest the window for critical infrastructure operators to prepare is getting smaller.
Part 2 examines why the counter-drone race is moving from detection to command and control.
FULL SERIES:
The New Drone Defence Stack - Part 1
The New Drone Defence Stack - Part 2