MyDefence

MyDefence has built its business around a single observation: most counter-drone systems are too heavy and too fixed to bring along on a foot patrol. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Aalborg, Denmark, the company designs radio-frequency detectors and jammers small enough to ride on a soldier’s vest or mount to a light vehicle, rather than sit on a mast or live inside a containerised counter-UAS site. That bias towards portable, dismounted use has shaped the entire product line and given the firm a recognisable niche in a crowded European counter-drone market.

The catalogue centres on two complementary devices. The Wingman, a body-worn RF sensor, listens for the control and video links of consumer and prosumer drones and alerts the wearer through a compact display or an earpiece when a known waveform appears. The Pitbull is a handheld effector paired with the same detection chain — once the operator confirms a hostile track, a directional jam blocks the link long enough for the airframe to drop or return to its launch point. The Watchdog and Wolfpack lines extend the same signal library to vehicles and fixed positions, and MyDefence sells the underlying detection modules on their own to integrators who want to embed counter-UAS sensing inside larger command-and-control systems.

Demand for that kind of kit accelerated after February 2022, when small drones became a routine daily threat for dismounted troops along the eastern edge of Europe. MyDefence equipment has been documented in Ukrainian service, and the Danish armed forces field the company’s gear at home. NATO members across the Nordic and Baltic region have been steady customers, and the systems have appeared in counter-UAS exercises and US Army equipment evaluations as Western armies look for ways to push detection and effects down to the squad level rather than concentrate them at the brigade rear.

The company remains privately held and does not publish detailed financial figures, but it has grown well beyond its original Aalborg engineering team and now supports international training and sustainment alongside the hardware. Its position in the counter-drone market is distinctive precisely because it has resisted the urge to scale up: while much of the industry chases longer ranges, larger arrays and more powerful effectors, MyDefence has stayed focused on the soldier on the ground who needs to know whether the buzz overhead is friendly or hostile — and to do something about it in seconds, with the kit already on his back.