But what if we did the opposite?

Instead of covering enemy drones with nets, what if we covered our roads and buildings with anti-drone nets?

Both sides of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine War have experimented with industrial fishing nets as defensive armor. Here is what we have learned from them.

Why fishing nets work

Nearly all quadcopters have propellers that are 75 millimeters or larger1.

Commercial fishing nets typically have a mesh size of 50 millimeters2—small enough to entangle nearly all drone propellers and prevent bombs from reaching their target.

Types of defensive nets

1. Net tunnels for roads

Soldiers driving a tank or a jeep on an open road are particularly vulnerable to drone attacks.

In 2023, Russian forces were first spotted setting up isolated nets to protect their routes in eastern Ukraine—sometimes hanging them between lamp posts along a road.

By 2025, the Russians were spotted setting up continuous net tunnels—designed to protect a stretch of road without gaps.

In early 2025, observers noticed the Ukrainian military deploying similar protective tunnels3.

2. Nets for buildings

In early 2025, the Belgorod Oblast in Russia experimented with covering apartment buildings in anti-drone nets. Russian media published the following video4 showing the buildings covered in nets. Advantages of nets

Relative to a more complex air defense system, a net is brilliantly simple:

• No export controls. Fishing nets are not restricted like other air defense hardware.

• Plentiful supply. Industrial fishing nets discarded after years of use can be recycled into anti-drone nets5.

• Low hardware cost. A used fishing net could cost as low as $250 per metric ton—enough to cover anywhere from 1,600 to 3,200 square meters6.

• Passive operation. A net does not require ammunition, electrical power, or a human operator to continually protect an area7.

Nets have additional advantages when compared to chain-link fences, razor wire, and other metal barriers:

• Minimal radar signature. Nylon or polyethylene nets are difficult to see on radar8. In contrast, a metal chain-link fence might offer more protection, but the metal will be far more visible to enemy radar9.

• Preventing bombs from exploding. A kamikaze drone will explode if it hits a chain-link fence. But drones caught in a fishing net may become entangled without immediately detonating.

Disadvantages of nets

As of May 2025, infrastructure-protecting nets are still a new development. Nets have several limitations that make their overall value uncertain:

• Unclear effectiveness. Ukraine claims to have successfully launched drone attacks against targets inside Russian net tunnels. Nets likely offer only minimal protection against fragmentation bombs—which detonate into small pieces that can pass through the net.

• Labor-intensive installation. Installing a net tunnel requires driving countless fence posts into the ground. Covering a building in a net may require scarce construction cranes.

• Weather damage. Rain, snow, and ice can cause nets to snag or snap. Nets also degrade through continual exposure to ultraviolet light from the Sun.

• Ongoing repair costs. In addition to weather repair, nets must be repaired after drones attack them10. Repairing a single net is easy, but it is challenging to repair thousands of miles of nets can before the enemy can exploit the holes.

• Potentially trapping people inside. If a convoy of vehicles are driving through a net tunnel, they could be trapped inside if the first and last vehicles are disabled11.

Conclusion

As of May 2025, the value of nets protecting roads and buildings is still unclear for two reasons:

• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Nets are cheap to buy… but as other methods of drone defense become cheaper, the cost of installing and repairing thousands of miles of nets may become unfavorable.

• Effectiveness over time. Drone technology gets better over time, but used fishing nets don’t. Newer drones, explosives, and incendiary weapons may cut through today’s nets like a knife through butter.

We will see what these nets are made of in the coming months.

Further reading

As we have covered in previous weeks:

• It is difficult to hit a small drone with a rifle or shotgun.

• The latest military drones are resistant to radio jamming.

This week, we’ll cover an exciting new anti-drone weapon: nets that tangle a drone’s propellers and cause it to crash.

How to capture a drone with a net

There are several ways to deploy a net to defeat a drone:

1. Net projectiles

A net projectile is a payload launched from a shotgun, grenade launcher, or cannon. Once launched, it expands into a net designed to get caught in the propellers of an enemy drone.

Net projectiles can also contain parachutes, which can slowly lower a captured drone without damaging it or surrounding people and property.

Some net projectiles can be launched from existing weapons:

• The US Army patented a net projectile that launches from a standard 40-millimeter grenade launcher.

• SKYNET is a brand of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition that expands into a 5-foot wide net when shot.

Other net systems rely on custom launchers. The UK firm OpenWorks sells a variety of net projectiles that can be used in their shoulder-mounted, vehicle-mounted, or fixed-position launchers.

2. Interceptor drones

An interceptor drone is a drone that you fly to chase down an approaching enemy drone.

In 2015, Tokyo police began trials of a six-rotor interceptor drone with a 6-square-meter net designed to entangle enemy drones.

More recently, the Russians have deployed anti-drone nets in the Russia-Ukraine War. Roy on X published the video below of a Russian anti-drone net launcher entangling another drone.

Net-wielding interceptor drones are also sold on the private market.

A handful of defense firms have their own interceptor drones for sale—such as DroneHunter F700 by Fortem Technologies and DroneCatcher by Delft Dynamics.

Advantages of nets

Compared to other anti-drone weapons, nets have numerous advantages:

• Low cost. A net costs almost nothing1 when compared to interceptor missiles or radio jammers.

• No radio disruption. Unlike a radio jammer, a net does not harm your ability to communicate via radio.

• Less lethal to humans. A bullet or rocket shot at a drone could miss and accidentally kill a nearby person. Net projectiles are designed to be less lethal—especially if they include parachutes2.

• Fire safety. Compared to a bullet or a rocket, a net is less likely to make the enemy drone catch fire or explode.

• Minimal shrapnel risk. Nets are unlikely to make a drone shatter into a thousand pieces. Nets with built-in parachutes can land a captured drone completely intact for future forensic analysis.

Drones that are resistant to nets

While nets are effective against today’s drones, net-resistant drones are already on the horizon.

Here are a few ways to build a drone that foils nets:

1. Propeller protection

It is simple to armor a drone’s propellers so that they won’t be caught in a net.

The Ukrainians have deployed drones with wire meshes on top3. The mesh protects the top side of a Ukrainian drone from Russian interceptor drones that fly above and launch a net downwards.

2. No propellers at all

The typical anti-drone net is designed for quadcopters with multiple propellers sticking upwards.

Nets are not as effective at capturing other aircraft, like:

• Gliders, kites, and balloons. They don’t have propellers for a net to tangle, but a net might be able to down them just by adding weight.

• Fixed-wing aircraft. A fixed-wing drone with only one propeller in front—instead of multiple propellers on top—will be harder to capture in a net.

• Jet and rockets. A drone, airplane, rocket, or missile that flies using a jet engine or rocket engine will be almost impossible to capture in a net.

3. Fly bigger, faster, or higher

Anti-drone nets are only effective for drones up to a certain size. Larger aircraft are unlikely to be captured by a net.

Net launchers and interceptor drones also have a maximum altitude above which an enemy drone could fly above.

Conclusion

Nets are an extraordinarily effective way to capture a small drone. They are cheap, cause minimal collateral damage, and can be quickly launched from a gun or an interceptor drone.

At Soundryx, we predict that nets will likely remain effective against small drones—at least until drones with anti-net propeller protection become common.

But nets are not effective against aircraft that are large, fast, or propeller-less aircraft. We’ll explore ways to take down these aircraft in the coming weeks.

Further reading

Both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries have used shotguns as a defense against incoming drones—especially when methods like radio jamming have failed.

In this essay, we’ll look at the benefits and drawbacks of using rifles and shotguns to neutralize drones—and how to make guns more effective.

The best type of guns and ammo

Shotguns

If you are shopping for anti-drone weapons at your local sporting goods store, you can’t go wrong with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with #4 buckshot.

But if you have access to higher-end weapons, several semi-automatic shotguns are decent for drone defense:

• Benelli M4. In 2023, the Belgian Air Force announced it would adopt the M4 as an anti-drone weapon to secure its airbases. Benelli sells a variant of the M4, the Drone Guardian, optimized for hitting targets at greater distances.

• Safari HG-105M. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense approved the HG-105M late last year for close-quarters combat and anti-drone operations.

• Hatsan ESCORT BTS12. Ukraine also ordered a batch of these Turkish bullpup shotguns as anti-drone weapons.

Rifles

Compared to shotguns, rifles have the downside that they can only shoot one bullet at a time. That bullet is less likely to hit—and fatally damage—the drone.

You can make a basic rifle (like the AR-15) more effective by attaching advanced optics to help you hit small drones from far away.

And if you pick heavier ammunition for your rifle, you can increase the chance that every bullet that hits the drone damages it.

Downsides of rifles and shotguns

But outside of the Russia-Ukraine War, shotguns and rifles have found relatively little use as anti-drone weapons. They have several flaws that can make shooting down a drone dangerous for the shooter:

• Limited range. Benelli claims that their M4 Drone Guardian has a range of 50 to 100 meters. Other shotguns should have a similar or slightly shorter range.

• Collateral damage. If a shooter is defending a crowded shopping mall against a drone, then every missed shot risks hitting a civilian. A missed shot could damage a person or property up to 1,000 meters away1, even if you can only damage a drone from 100 meters away.

• Limited firepower. Military drones are designed to keep flying even when damaged. It could take many shots to neutralize one.

• Fire and explosion hazards. If a drone is carrying a bomb, it could detonate if shot. If the drone is carrying a lithium battery, it could catch fire if shot.

The future of rifles and shotguns

Today’s rifles and shotguns can be augmented with new technologies to make them more effective at airborne targets.

1. Drone-busting ammunition

There are several new types of anti-drone ammunition designed to work with existing semi-automatic shotguns:

• Anti-Drone - Long Effective Range (AD-LER). Made by the Swedish ammunition firm Norma, AD-LER is a shotgun round with 350 tungsten pellets designed for use with the M4 shotgun against drones.

• SKYNET. These are 12-gauge shotgun shells that expand into a five-foot diameter net—designed to tangle a drone’s propellers.

• Perekhvat. This is a brand of Russian anti-drone shotgun ammunition. It is also designed to tangle propellers. Each round delivers a slug that breaks into six pieces connected by Kevlar strings.

2. AI-powered fire control systems

The main problem with using a rifle to shoot down a drone is that a typical human cannot aim well enough to hit a small, fast-moving drone.

But artificial intelligence-powered optics and fire control systems can help a human shooter achieve superhuman aim.

SMASH 3000 is an AI fire control system that can be added to an existing rifle. Built by the Israeli firm Smartshooter, a shooter with a SMASH-augmented rifle can “lock” onto a target drone. SMASH helps the shooter aim, giving a visual indicator to shoot when it estimates the probability of hitting the target is high.

Below is a demo view of the SMASH 3000 from Smartshooter’s YouTube account:

Smartshooter claims that SMASH 3000 can help eliminate small drones during the daytime from up to 200 meters away, and ground targets from 300 meters away.

In 2022, the US Army announced that it was adopting the SMASH 3000 fire control systems as part of its larger anti-drone initiatives.

Several other firms are building similar handheld AI fire control systems, including ZeroMark and AimLock.

Conclusion

Rifles and shotguns are desirable anti-drone weapons only because of their broad availability. Otherwise, these weapons have limited range, effectiveness, and safety.

If you have the time and money to invest in specific anti-drone weapons, there are better options, like:

• Radio jamming. Some drones can be stopped by jamming their ability to receive radio communications. Jamming is a good option to disable consumer drones—but only if the surrounding government regulations allow you to jam radio frequencies.

• Net launchers. These devices launch projectiles that unfold into nets that tangle an enemy drone’s propellers. SKYNET (mentioned above) is an anti-drone net that can be shot from a 12-gauge shotgun. But other nets can be deployed via a grenade launcher, an interceptor drone, or other weapons systems.

Further reading

We have written about several other methods for disabling drones.

Credit for this essay’s cover image goes to Mitch Barrie on Flickr.

We sell a network of sensors that allow you to detect an enemy drone, but you still need a way to disable enemy drones.

So we are writing a series of essays to examine the various ways to disable a drone.

In this essay, we’ll examine how to disable a drone’s ability to navigate by jamming the radio signals it relies upon to navigate. We’ll discuss:

1. how radio jamming works to disrupt consumer drones.

2. why jamming is no longer an effective method of protection against military drones.

What is a radio jammer?

A radio jammer emits intense radio waves on specific frequencies—with the intent of drowning out the ability of others to communicate on those radio frequencies.

A jammer can be installed at a fixed location, or it can be inside of a handheld weapon that a soldier or police officer aims at an incoming drone.

For example, DroneGun Tactical is a handheld drone jamming weapon invented by the Australian defense firm DroneShield.

Jamming is effective at stopping (mostly consumer) drones, without the risks of actually shooting at the drone with a real gun or a rocket.

Where is drone jamming employed?

• On the battlefield. Radio jamming is employed by every modern military in the world—both against drones and other radio devices. Both Russia and Ukraine heavily employ radio jamming against each other’s drones. Jamming protects soldiers from drone attacks, and can also be used to jam the enemy’s defending drones when launching attacks.

• Executive protection. Jamming is used to prevent drones from assassinating high-profile figures. In 2023, during the inauguration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazilian police used a DroneGun Tactical to neutralize four suspicious drones that were heading towards the President.

• Protecting large events. Police have used jamming to neutralize drones that threatened a soccer game in Wuhan, China, the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, and other sporting events around the world.

The collateral damage of jamming

But even when jamming is effective, it does come with a few downsides. If you use a jammer against drones, you might1 also disrupt nearby benevolent uses of radio communication, like:

• civilian cell phone and GPS usage.

• military and police radio communications.

• communication and navigation for your own drones, helicopters, planes, etc2.

Because of this, the use of radio jamming equipment is tightly regulated by most governments in the industrialized world.

The legality of jamming

In the United States, radio jammers are more-or-less banned by federal law3. However, the law grants exceptions4 to the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, and Justice to use jamming against enemy drones5.

As of this essay’s publication (May 2025), local and state agencies in the United States cannot engage in drone jamming unless under the direction of the DoD, DoE, DHS, or DOJ. There has been legislation proposed to change this, but they have not become law as of this time of writing.

How jamming affects consumer drones

A typical drone receives6 radio signals from both:

1. their controller (usually operated by a human drone pilot) that tells them where to fly

2. satellite positioning networks like GPS or GLONASS that tells the drone where it is on Earth.

If we want to use radio jamming to stop an enemy drone, we can try to interrupt either the control link, the satellite link, or both.

If we jam a consumer drone (like a DJI Mavic), then it will either7:

• hover in place, waiting to regain its radio link.

• descend and land, waiting for the drone pilot to come find it.

• fly back to the “home” location where the drone began its current flight.

Consumer drones are programmed with the above behaviors to make it easier for the drone pilot to retrieve their drone if it flies out of the controller’s radio range.

But these pre-programmed behaviors also allow militaries and law enforcement agencies to jam a hostile consumer drone—preventing it from trespassing further into restricted airspace, and possibly even following the drone back to its pilot.

How military drones resist jamming

Some militaries or armed groups will use off-the-shelf consumer drones like the DJI Mavic. These drones are cheap (by military standards) and highly effective against enemies that do not defend themselves with radio jamming or other methods of electronic warfare.

But many military drones are designed to be resistant to radio jamming, using one or more of the following strategies:

1. Jamming-resistant radio antennas

Many military drones use frequency hopping8 or beamforming9 so that their radio communications can punch through their enemy’s jamming efforts.

For example, the below image features a Ukrainian drone’s beamforming antenna array for satellite navigation. The array is made up of four antennas, which allow the drone to listen to satellite communications from above while ignoring radio jamming from below.

2. Radio-free navigation

Many drones can follow a pre-programmed flight path without needing a radio link to a controller. They can also use inertial sensors or computer vision to navigate without a radio link to satellite navigation.

• A reconnaissance drone can be programmed to fly home in the face of jamming.

• A kamikaze drone can be programmed to continue to fly to its target despite jamming.

Some drones have a relatively simple method of radio-free navigation. For example, Russia’s Lancet drones fly autonomously once they lock onto their target.

Other drones autonomously navigate using artificial intelligence and sensors—like cameras or LIDAR.

There are numerous types of drones capable of this feat, but perhaps the most iconic drone of its type was created at the Defense Tech Hackathon in El Segundo in February 2024.

The contestants at the hackathon went on to create a company around the drone, went through Y Combinator, and raised $4.3 million.

3. Attacking the jammer

If you are operating a radio jammer10, you are emitting a trail of powerful radio waves that reveal your position. An enemy’s weapon follow this trail, find you, and kill you.

The term anti-radiation (as in, anti-radio) refers to bombs, missiles, drones, and loitering munitions that can home in on an enemy radio emission—whether it is a RADAR, a jammer, or a communication radio.

4. Fiber-optic cables

A fiber-optic drone does not use radio to communicate at all. Instead, each drone carries a spool of fiber-optic cable—up to 20 kilometers long—that provides a wired connection directly to the drone’s controller11.

Fiber-optic drones were first deployed by the Russians against the Ukrainians in early 2024, with the Ukrainians following suit soon after.

The upside: Because these drones do not need to emit radio signals, they are impossible to jam via radio. It is also impossible to detect these drones by listening for any radio waves they emit, because they don’t emit any. This is different than RADAR, where you emit a radio wave that bounces off of the drone.

The downside: The fiber-optic cables can be fragile. They can break or get tangled in trees. The cables can also only be used once, which makes them not useful for drones that are supposed to fly more than once.

Conclusion

At Soundryx, we have two predictions about the future of drone jamming in the year 2025 and beyond:

1. Jamming will continue to be effective against consumer drones

Consumer drones will always be designed to stop or fly home when they lose their radio link.

Jamming is the ideal weapon for police departments to use against consumer drones, but laws in the US and elsewhere must change to allow police departments to employ jamming.

2. Jamming will become worthless against drones on the battlefield

In the past and present, jamming has been highly effective against drones on the battlefield. Both Russia and Ukraine have heavily employed jamming and other electronic warfare (EW) techniques against each other’s drones.

But looking beyond 2025, we expect that military drones will lose their dependence on radio and become immune to jamming.

Further reading

We have written about several other methods for disabling enemy drones.