Counter-Drone Systems Explained: A Policy-Level Guide

In 2026, governments bought jammers, lined up lasers, ran interceptor trials and rewrote who may take a drone down. Here is how each category is bought, tested and authorized, and what that means for a lawful pilot near a sensitive site.

By the FPV Drone Essentials editors · Defense · Published October 16, 2026

Counter-drone systems are now being bought, tested and written into law at the same time. In the last week of September 2026 alone, reports covered an urgent Marine Corps jammer purchase, a Dutch letter of intent for a laser, the close of Pentagon detection and interceptor trials at Yuma Proving Ground, and an invitation for laser and microwave developers to test at Camp Grayling in Michigan.

For a pilot, the rules matter more than the hardware: who may watch a drone, who may restrict where it flies, who may take it down, and who must be told when that happens. This guide sorts the public 2026 record by those questions and stays at the level of policy, procurement and testing.

A note on names: official US releases this year, including those on DVIDS, use the title Department of War. This column says "the Pentagon" throughout so older and newer sources read the same way.

Five categories, sorted by consequence

Public buying and testing in 2026 falls into five families. The useful policy line is not the technology but what happens to the aircraft. Detection only watches. Radio-frequency defeat disrupts the links a drone depends on. Interceptors and directed-energy systems are meant to disable the aircraft itself. The new US rules follow the same split, with separate certifications for detection and for mitigation.

Detection is the base layer, and it is still uneven: among the South Korean nuclear plants run by operator KHNP, only Wolsong already runs combined radar and optical/infrared detection.

Marine Corps documents describe Pulsar-L as a soft-kill system that pairs a sensor with a jammer, aimed at Group 1 and Group 2 drones that rely on radio links. Group 1 covers aircraft up to 20 lb; Group 2 runs from 21 to 55 lb (The War Zone).

Officials describe Bumblebee V2 as a physical interceptor that disables a hostile small drone through a collision (U.S. Army).

Who may use them in the United States

The belief that only federal agencies can take down a drone in the US is out of date. The SAFER SKIES Act, part of the FY2026 NDAA signed on December 18, 2025, widened that authority. A DHS and DOJ interim final rule implementing it took effect on July 1, 2026, and lets state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement and correctional agencies carry out counter-UAS operations.

The authority attaches to trained people, not only to agencies. Only staff certified through the FBI-run national training schoolhouse may disrupt, seize or disable a drone. Detection-and-warning work needs its own certification. Contractors may not operate mitigation systems, and private property owners and private security remain excluded.

The FAA acts as a coordinator here, not a gatekeeper. The rule says the airspace process is one of coordination, not approval, yet it requires real-time notice to air traffic control whenever mitigation is used. That notice is what matters to everyone else sharing the airspace. The rule is interim; comments closed on September 4, 2026, and the text may change.

Section 2209: restrictions, not takedowns

A separate FAA rule, still only a proposal, deals with restriction rather than takedown. The proposed Section 2209 rule, published on May 6, 2026, would let qualifying critical-infrastructure sites request drone flight restrictions, capped by default at 400 ft above ground level. It would give site owners no right to detect drones or bring them down.

Its comment period was extended to August 5, 2026, and no final rule had been found as of October 9, 2026. The draft's conditions for Part 107 pilots include broadcasting Remote ID, crossing by the shortest practical route and notifying the facility. Those terms could change, as could the rule's effect on about 25 state airspace laws. Our Weight and Rules guide covers the baseline all of this would sit on.

How governments buy counter-drone systems

Three buying routes show up in this year's public record, and the headline dollar figure means something different in each. Buying rules for the drones themselves are a separate subject, covered in NDAA-Compliant Drones and Blue UAS Explained.

Urgent sole-source purchases

Marine Corps Systems Command awarded Anduril a sole-source contract worth $15,711,445.50 for Pulsar-L jammers to protect Amphibious Combat Vehicles from drones, without disclosing how many units it covers (The War Zone). The urgent requirement was formalized on April 7, 2026.

The buy is a stop-gap: the Marine Corps' formal program of record for soft-kill counter-UAS is not planned to begin until fiscal year 2027. The Marines' wording that Pulsar-L is the only solution comes from a sole-source justification, not from a published test.

Ceiling contracts

On January 30, 2026, Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) awarded Perennial Autonomy a $5.2 million agreement for the Bumblebee V2 interceptor. In May, the same task force gave the company a contract with a $500 million ceiling covering its Merops, Bumblebee and Hornet systems (Defense News).

The ceiling is a cap, not guaranteed spending. The contract lasts up to three years or until the full amount is paid, whichever happens first. Calling it $500 million of committed Pentagon money overstates it.

Letters of intent

Dutch State Secretary for Defence Derk Boswijk signed a letter of intent with Electro Optic Systems (EOS) on the Apollo counter-drone laser (Unmanned Airspace). Subject to further work, the ministry plans to buy several systems, and both sides will look at producing them in the Netherlands. Neither the quantity nor the budget has been disclosed.

It is not the Netherlands' first step. NL Times and The Defense Post report that the country already bought an Apollo system in 2025 for €71.4 million, with deliveries from 2025 to 2028. The new letter concerns turning that prototype into an operational system and exploring Dutch production.

How they are tested

Falcon Peak 26.2 was a counter-small-drone experiment run by US Northern Command and JIATF-401 at Yuma Proving Ground between August 31 and September 25, 2026. The official participant list names 21 companies, including Perennial Autonomy.

JIATF-401 says each system was scored against standardized criteria and the data pooled to inform acquisition (DVIDS closing release). Results have not been published, and no official release reports Bumblebee-specific dates or results. The test lanes built for the event will stay open at Yuma for ongoing industry evaluation, which turns a one-month trial into a standing test site.

Directed energy has its own track. Michigan's National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) is asking developers of high-energy lasers and high-power microwave systems to bring their test requirements to Camp Grayling (DVIDS). Under the Army's Permissive Range Initiative, Camp Grayling was named one of four US military test ranges open to private industry. It offers about 148,000 acres of maneuver space plus special-use airspace at nearby Alpena.

When counter-drone use meets civil airspace

The pressure behind all this is real. Joint Task Force-Southern Border's deputy commander said the military had logged 378 drone incursions at the US-Mexico border in 30 days, most of them commercial off-the-shelf drones (Reuters via Military Times).

February 2026 showed what happens when that pressure meets civil aviation. The FAA suddenly shut the airspace over El Paso after the Pentagon authorized a high-energy counter-drone laser against a suspected cartel drone, then reopened it hours later (NPR via WGCU).

Accounts still conflict. An anonymous official said Customs and Border Protection, not the military, operated the laser, and the target may have been a party balloon. No later investigation findings have been found.

The lesson for pilots is that counter-drone use can disrupt civil aviation, not just the ground around it. As noted above, the SAFER SKIES rule requires real-time notice to air traffic control when mitigation is used. Checking for restrictions right before flying near a border or critical site is a sensible habit.

A comparison: South Korea

South Korea is working the same problem from the pilot's side, raising penalties while its detection catches up. Since September 17, 2026, flying a drone in a Korean no-fly zone without approval has been a criminal offense, punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 10 million won. It previously carried an administrative fine of up to 3 million won (Seoul Metropolitan Government notice). Nuclear plants are top-grade national security facilities with an 18.5 km (about 11.5 mile) no-fly radius.

Identification is the gap. Data that Rep. Kim Nam-guk obtained from plant operator KHNP shows 867 unauthorized drone flights detected near Korean nuclear plants over five years. Operators were identified in 544 cases; the other 323 were never traced (Drone Magazine News). KHNP is spending about 400 million won on a site-by-site study of detection blind spots running until March 2027, with full-scale equipment upgrades planned after April 2027.

Jammer access is widening, but on tight terms. Under the amended Radio Waves Act, which takes effect on October 22, 2026, public-safety agencies may use jammers for training, maintenance and testing after notifying the Ministry of Science and ICT, and only at sites the minister has designated (News1). Older guidance limiting jammers to real incidents will be out of date from that day.

What this means for lawful civilian pilots

• The list of who may take a drone down has grown, but it is still short. A private guard or property owner in the US still has no such authority.
• Restricting and defeating are separate powers. If Section 2209 is finalized as proposed, its access conditions lean on Remote ID, so a working broadcast is likely to matter more near critical sites.
• Rules abroad can be far stricter. In South Korea, an unapproved no-fly-zone flight is now a criminal matter.

None of this replaces the basics in the Rules chapter of FPV Drone Essentials; it adds a layer of authority above them that is still being written. The markers to watch are the final SAFER SKIES rule, any final Section 2209 rule and Korea's October 22 radio-law change. For how military programs train FPV pilots and which civilian skills carry over, see Military FPV Drone Pilot Training: What Transfers.

Sources

• The War Zone (TWZ), Joseph Trevithick
• Unmanned Airspace
• DVIDS (Michigan National Guard, Maj. Trevor Kay)
• DVIDS (Department of War participant announcement)
• DVIDS (JIATF-401 and NORAD/USNORTHCOM closing release)
• U.S. Army (army.mil)
• Defense News
• Reuters (via Military Times)
• NPR (via WGCU)
• Federal Register, Vol. 91 No. 127 (DHS/DOJ interim final rule)
• Federal Register, FAA NPRM (Docket FAA-2026-4558, RIN 2120-AL33)
• News1

Facts checked against the sources above as of October 9, 2026. Drone rules and firmware change; check the current version before you rely on a detail.