Counter-UAS Detection Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has flattened, not grown. activity peaked at 7 families in 2020 and sits below that through the most recent full year, with the 2026 count still partial.
- Radar dominates the claim space. G01S accounts for 33 of 36 families, far ahead of jamming-focused H04K and drone-platform B64U filings.
- Filing is split across six receiving offices. with Europe, India, South Korea, the US and Australia each holding single-digit counts and no office commanding a clear majority.
A narrow, radar-heavy field with flat recent filing
Counter-UAS detection and mitigation patenting is a small, technically concentrated field: 36 patent families span radar-based detection, RF-signature classification, jamming and geofencing. The IPC composition shows most of the claim activity sits inside G01S (radar, sonar and positioning), with secondary clusters in military defence hardware (F41H) and jamming communications (H04K). B64U, the dedicated drone-platform subclass, holds only 5 of the 36 families — a sign that most applicants are patenting the detection method rather than the drone or counter-drone hardware itself.
Filing rose to a peak of 7 families in 2020 and has not exceeded that since; by the 2022 midpoint the annual count had returned to 5, and it stayed roughly flat through the most recent full year. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2026 figure of 3 is an undercount rather than a genuine drop-off, but the multi-year plateau before it is not an artefact of that lag.
Filing trend and technology composition
The trend line and IPC breakdown below are drawn directly from the 36 families in this dataset; use them to separate a genuinely flat field from a data-lag artefact.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual family counts rise to a peak of 7 in 2020, ease to 5 by 2022, and hold roughly flat into the most recent years; the 2026 figure of 3 is partial and will revise upward as later publications land.
IPC subclass composition
G01S (radar, sonar and positioning) appears in 33 of 36 families, making it the dominant claim surface; F41H, B64C, H04K, B64U, G05D, G08G and H04W each contribute a smaller, roughly comparable slice, indicating detection method claims outnumber platform or network-layer claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 36 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Counter-UAS Detection and Mitigation with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about counter-uas detection and mitigation and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
US12379482B2 — Apparatus and method for detecting, identifying and locating drones
The patent describes illuminating a target with one or multiple selected RF carrier frequencies and processing both the direct emissions received from the target and re-emissions generated by the target's own circuitry to determine whether it is a drone. The re-emissions include cross-modulation products comprising forced non-linear emissions, which are processed to build an RF signature used for identification.Assigned to RTX BBN Technologies, Inc.; published 2025-08-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2017207716A1 | Radar target detection system and method | 10 |
| 2 | US11017680B2 | Drone detection systems | 8 |
| 3 | US20220413122A1 | Apparatus and method for detecting, identifying and locating drones | 7 |
| 4 | US11402469B2 | Radar target detection system and method | 6 |
| 5 | WO2020236238A1 | Counter drone system | 5 |
| 6 | US20220180759A1 | Anti-drone integrated management device and operation method thereof | 4 |
| 7 | KR102929505B1 | SDR-Based Battery-Integrated Anti-Drone Detection and Jamming System | 1 |
| 8 | KR102839260B1 | Drone detection and jamming signal transmission device based on uplink signal and downlink signal | 1 |
| 9 | KR1020250073950A | Unmanned Aerial Vehicle classification and identification systems and methods | 1 |
| 10 | WO2022271506A1 | Apparatus and method for detecting, identifying and locating drones | 1 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favour older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on later applicants, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three findings stand out once family counts, IPC composition and receiving offices are lined up against each other.
Radar detection is the default claim route
Nearly every family in this dataset touches radar-based detection in some form, even where the primary invention is classification or RF signature work. Applicants entering with a pure jamming or geofencing claim are filing into a field where radar is the near-universal companion classification.
Growth has flattened since the 2020 peak
The filing trend rises to 7 families in 2020, eases to 5 by 2022, and does not recover from there. Given the roughly 18-month publication lag, the partial 2026 figure will revise upward, but the multi-year plateau preceding it points to a field that has stopped expanding rather than one still accelerating.
No single office anchors this field
Receiving-office counts are close together across Europe, India, South Korea, the US and PCT filings, with Australia not far behind. That spread suggests counter-UAS detection is being litigated and commercialised as a multi-jurisdiction problem rather than concentrated around one national defence-procurement market.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to counter-uas detection and mitigation, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where claim density is thin
With only 36 families total and one identified co-assignee pairing, this field lacks the dense, multi-party alliance structure seen in larger UAV sub-sectors. Recent-year momentum for the most active named assignees shows zero activity in the latest year across the board, consistent with the field's overall plateau rather than a single company's retreat.
No assignee shows current-year growth
Every named assignee in the recent-momentum data, including RTX BBN Technologies' predecessor entity and UK defence-linked filers, recorded zero families in the latest tracked year. This is consistent with the field-wide plateau rather than any single company exiting the space.
Co-filing is rare in this field
Only one co-assignee pairing appears across the 36 families, between a Korean data-technology firm and a Korean solutions company. The near-absence of joint filings suggests most counter-UAS detection IP here is developed and held by single organisations rather than through formal R&D partnerships.
Influence concentrates in a handful of older filings
The most-cited records, led by a radar target detection system and method filing, sit years ahead of the corpus median. Because citation counts favour earlier publications by construction, these should be read as foundational reference points for later applicants rather than as markers of present-day commercial weight.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Andrew Industries | 0 | -100% |
| QinetiQ Limited | 0 | — |
| RTX BBN Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| UK Ministry of Defence | 0 | — |
| DYMSTEC | 0 | -100% |
| Datatec Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| NextVision Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) | 0 | — |
Where to look next
The dataset points to specific follow-up questions rather than a single next step.
Track the 2025-2026 publication lag
The partial 2026 count of 3 will rise as filings from the past 18 months clear examination and publish. Re-checking this trend in six to twelve months will show whether the post-2020 plateau is ending or holding.
Explore live filing data in EurekaMap the radar-versus-RF-signature boundary
With G01S present in 33 of 36 families, the more useful competitive question is which specific detection technique each of those families claims. A closer read of the most-cited records is a reasonable starting point.
Compare claim scope in EurekaWatch the under-claimed jamming and geofencing branches
H04K and B64U each sit well below G01S in family count. Either could be a freedom-to-operate opening or simply a sign that those functions are usually claimed inside a radar-detection patent rather than standalone.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on counter-UAS detection patents
This dataset identifies 36 patent families filed between 2017 and mid-2026 that combine counter-drone detection search terms with radar, jamming, geofencing or classification claim language under IPC codes B64U30, G01S13 and H04K3. That is a small, specialised field compared with broader UAV patenting overall. The true current-year count is understated because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months, so recent filings are still arriving in the record.
Radar-based detection, classified under IPC subclass G01S, appears in 33 of the 36 families in this dataset, making it the dominant claim surface by a wide margin. Military defence hardware (F41H) and jamming communications (H04K) form smaller secondary clusters. Dedicated drone-platform claims under B64U are comparatively rare, at only 5 families, indicating most applicants are patenting the detection method rather than physical drone or counter-drone hardware.
Filing activity peaked at 7 families in 2020, eased to 5 by 2022, and has stayed roughly flat since, with the partial 2026 count of 3 not yet reflecting the full publication pipeline. Read together, this looks like a plateau rather than sustained growth or a genuine decline. Anyone tracking this space should revisit the trend after the 18-month publication lag clears for the most recent filing years.
Receiving-office counts in this dataset are closely spread: Europe (EPO) leads with 8, followed by India at 7, then South Korea and the US tied at 5, Australia at 4, and PCT international filings also at 4. No single office holds a commanding share, which suggests applicants are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than concentrating on one national market.
US12379482B2, assigned to RTX BBN Technologies and published in August 2025, covers a method of illuminating a target with selected RF carrier frequencies and processing both the direct emissions and target-generated re-emissions, including cross-modulation products from forced non-linear emissions, to build an RF signature and determine whether the target is a drone. It sits inside a small cluster of RF-signature detection patents rather than the larger radar-detection majority. Anyone building an RF-illumination-based drone identification system should review its specific claim language on cross-modulation product processing before designing a similar signal chain.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
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Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.