New funding for Countering Drones Phase 2 competition

The Home Office and Department for Transport have announced that an additional £1.5 million of government funding is being allocated to the Defence and Security Accelerator’s (DASA) Countering Drones competition.

This DASA competition provides an immediate opportunity to help the government further develop the critical counter-drone technical capabilities we need at pace, and to support counter-drone exploitation routes in the future.

The additional funding brings the new total to at least £3 million, with the Home Office anticipating that this should more than double the number of proposals that the government will be able to award for this DASA competition.

For this new funding, the government is particularly keen to hear from industry and academia who have innovative solutions to respond to domestic security needs, in addition to the needs already published. There is particular interest in C-sUAS solutions that can be static, mobile, portable or temporarily deployable on vehicle(s), to: detect presence of sUAVs; determine location, intent and assess the risk posed; locate operator; and enforce a ‘no-drone’ zone.

The Home Office Counter-Drones Unit owns domestic counter-drones policy for the government, working closely across the government and operational partners to understand risk and operational requirements.