The modern battlefield in Ukraine has seen a multi-year proliferation of low-cost, first-person-view (FPV) drones that cost around $500 per unit and are modified to deliver small explosive payloads.
Ukrainian and Russian military forces both deploy electronic countermeasures, including radio-frequency jamming systems, along the front and secondary lines. These measures have achieved partial success, yet the move by both sides to deploy non-jammable fiber-optic drones has rendered these electronic jammers useless.
Engaging low-cost FPV drones can involve anything from sticks to 50-cent shotgun shells to $100,000 surface-to-air missiles. It is economically unsustainable for any military force to rely on expensive missiles to counter cheap, Chinese-made FPVs, and this mismatch risks rapidly depleting precision munitions inventories for higher-value targets.
The proper response in the era of FPV kamikaze drones, which will only get faster and more intelligent with artificial intelligence, is for immediate development and deployment of cost-effective, scalable counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS).
Military startup Sentradel is developing a low-cost, easily deployable CUAS system designed to target small drones using inexpensive kinetic interceptors, such as bullets.
“In today’s threat landscape, a $500 FPV drone can easily destroy a $10M tank,” Sentradel stated on its website, warning, “We’re losing this asymmetric cost warfare. The solution is NOT $100,000 missiles, it’s affordable systems like Sentradel.”
These CUAS systems appear to be autonomous turrets packed with AI that are designed to detect, track, and destroy small drones. The weapon of choice mounted on the turret seems to be an AR-platform shotgun.
Everyone has seen the videos.
War in Ukraine 🇺🇦 Ukrainian FPV Kamikaze Drone chases Russian Desertcross 1000-3 with troops on board #Ukraina #Russia #UkraineWar pic.twitter.com/esZbBvXRQj
— Skënderbeü_ (@AncientAlien01) May 2, 2024
Russian fiberoptic FPV drone chases down a Ukrainian pickup truck with troops in the back. pic.twitter.com/tGxUVYCzcN
— FUNKER530 (@FunkerActual) July 15, 2025
Now the solution.
Here’s a quick update on Sentradel, a new company I’m starting with @camrrowe #robotics #drones pic.twitter.com/ZSzKvSr6s2
— STS 3D (@sts_3d) August 11, 2025
Will Sentradel be at ShotShow Vegas in 2026?
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