Australia’s drone defense ambitions are getting lighter with the debut of a handheld counter-drone system designed to fit in a soldier’s kit.
Developed by Sydney-based MILLIBEAM, the RAKURAI is built to disrupt the control, navigation, and data links of small hostile drones before they can pose a threat.
Rather than limiting the technology to specialized operators, the company designed the system to be carried and operated by individual soldiers as part of their standard equipment.
MILLIBEAM said RAKURAI’s antennas, radio frequency (RF) front-end, power electronics, and signal generation components were engineered as a single integrated unit instead of separate subsystems.
According to the company, this approach enables simultaneous transmission across multiple radio channels.
Originally developed for soldiers and first responders, the system can also be deployed to protect critical infrastructure such as airports and energy facilities.
By the Numbers
Designed for one-handed carry, RAKURAI weighs less than a kilogram (2.2 pounds) and has an effective range of more than one kilometer (0.6 mile).
It operates across a frequency range of 400 megahertz to 6 gigahertz, allowing it to disrupt signals used by GPS, Wi-Fi, and industrial radio systems from a single device.
The system can also transmit continuously across all active bands for more than two hours.
Toward Broader Testing
RAKURAI was developed with more than 4.6 million Australian dollars ($3.2 million) in federal funding, including 2.6 million Australian dollars ($1.8 million) from the Industry Growth Program and up to 2 million Australian dollars ($1.4 million) from the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative.
The company said the system has progressed beyond laboratory testing and has already undergone real-world trials, with broader field testing planned.
“For a century, the world has built more on top of legacy RF communications networks without ever rebuilding the foundation itself,” MILLIBEAM CEO Venkata Gutta said, as quoted by SecurityBrief Australia.
“Every autonomous and defense system currently depends on architecture designed for a different era. Australia has a narrow window to own that foundation rather than import it.”
