WrapShield from Wrap Technologies, Inc. utilizes thermal polarimetric AI as its core machine perception capability, applying it to counter-UAS detection, intelligence and response. It is designed to operate across the full spectrum of modern drone threats, from commercially available systems to highly sophisticated adversarial platforms.
By Irit Idan, Ph.D.
Police departments across the country have embraced drones as an invaluable tool. Fully 76% of public safety agencies already operate drones, and another 17% plan to adopt them. Police use drones daily for search and rescue, crash reconstruction, crowd monitoring and getting eyes on a scene before an officer arrives.
That part of the story is a success. What gets far less attention is what happens when the drone overhead isn’t one of yours.
Law enforcement agencies face a rapidly evolving threat landscape as drones proliferate and are increasingly exploited by criminals and other bad actors. In the past, most unauthorized drones relied on radio frequency (RF) signals, allowing agencies to detect or disrupt them using RF-based countermeasures. Today, drones are becoming increasingly autonomous, harder to detect and capable of operating in environments where conventional technologies struggle.
This evolution is already playing out in the defense sector. Early drones relied on RF control links, making them relatively easy to detect and jam. More recently, fiber-optic- and laser-guided systems have emerged that transmit no RF signal to detect. Fully autonomous drones are the next step, requiring no communication link back to a pilot.
This is not a distant scenario. It is already standard practice on battlefields in Ukraine. Fiber-optic drones became widely deployed during the conflict beginning in 2024. By early 2026, more than 35 Ukrainian manufacturers were producing them, according to industry reporting, with some frontline units reaching 30% to 50% fiber-optic adoption. Some fiber-optic drones now strike targets from more than 30 kilometers away while maintaining a clear video feed and emitting no radio signal for jammers to detect. Autonomous terminal guidance, in which a drone identifies and steers itself into a target after launch without human input, is no longer experimental.
While drones have many legitimate public safety applications, criminals, gangs, terrorists and other bad actors can also purchase sophisticated drones and use them for surveillance, smuggling, attacks and disruption. Between 2015 and 2019, the Justice Department recorded 130 incidents of drones delivering or attempting to deliver contraband at federal prisons, and that count nearly doubled in the years after the Bureau of Prisons began tracking it closely.
If you can’t see the threat, how can you detect it, and who has the authority to stop it?
Where local agencies tend to be most exposed
From a threat perspective, three areas tend to present the greatest exposure and should be on every agency’s radar:
Correctional facilities: Drones are already being used to bypass secure perimeters, delivering weapons, drugs and cell phones directly into recreation yards and other restricted areas.
Large public gatherings: Open-air stadiums, parades and outdoor concerts are vulnerable to drone-based surveillance, contraband drops and even weaponized payloads.
Critical infrastructure: Water treatment facilities, power substations and transportation hubs face risks ranging from surveillance and cyber reconnaissance to physical disruption.
Overcoming the urban blind spot
Conventional drone detection systems typically rely on radar, radio frequency (RF) detection, thermal imaging and optical sensors. While effective in certain environments, these technologies often struggle in urban settings, where buildings, trees, birds and other obstacles create significant interference. In these environments, today’s standard sensors can become effectively “blind” when drones operate below the skyline or within dense urban terrain.
The Center for Internet Security summarized the challenge in its April 2026 report on drone risks at large public gatherings: “Traditional security measures were built to stop threats on the ground.” The threat from above creates shorter warning times, reduced detection accuracy, increased risk to officers and civilians, and greater difficulty tracking emerging autonomous drone threats. Traditional response tactics are challenged as well. Drones can bypass roadblocks, evade patrols, and fly over fences and other ground-based security measures.
Most detection methods in use today assume a drone is emitting a signal that can be detected.
A drone connected by a fiber-optic control line emits no RF signal. A drone navigating autonomously using onboard cameras and sensors may emit no detectable signal at all. That is the gap RF-based detection and jamming systems cannot close on their own.
To address this challenge, the counter-drone (C-UAS) landscape is shifting toward multi-sensor integration. A robust strategy combines passive RF detection, acoustic sensors, and optical and thermal imaging to verify targets. Emerging technologies, such as polarimetric thermal systems, identify the physical materials that make up a drone — including carbon fiber, polymers and metal alloys — rather than relying solely on electronic emissions. This allows them to detect silent, autonomous or fiber-optic-guided drones in a variety of weather conditions while distinguishing them from birds and other objects.
In testing, polarimetric thermal systems detected drones up to 50% more effectively than standard military-grade cooled mid-wave infrared (MWIR) thermal sensors. For law enforcement, that difference can translate into earlier warning, more time to assess the threat, better coordination and greater protection for officers and civilians before a drone reaches a crowded venue or critical infrastructure.
Adding an AI layer at the sensor edge enables real-time threat classification without the latency or cloud dependency of remote processing. The command layer can then integrate with existing command-and-control (C2) systems to generate automated alerts, allowing a stadium security director or correctional watch commander to see a tracked and classified object rather than an unexplained blip.
Artificial objects highlighted on the ground in an outdoors scene by the AoLP and DoLP data layers (Angle of Linera Polarization, Degree of Liner Polarization). WrapShield™ from Wrap Technologies, Inc. utilizes thermal polarimetric AI as its core machine perception capability, applying it to counter-UAS detection, intelligence and response. It is designed to operate across the full spectrum of modern drone threats, from commercially available systems to highly sophisticated adversarial platforms.
Navigating the legal and policy landscape
Identifying and tracking a drone is not the same as having the legal authority to act on it.
For years, only four federal agencies — the Departments of Defense, Justice, Energy and Homeland Security — possessed full legal authority to detect, track and counter unauthorized drones. Local law enforcement officers observing a hostile drone generally lacked the authority to jam or disable it because of federal law.
That landscape is beginning to change. The FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) granted state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies counter-drone authority for the first time, contingent on federal training and certification. In February 2026, Rep. Eric Burlison introduced the Counter Drone State and Local Defender Act, establishing a three-year pilot program for up to 4,000 agencies nationwide, along with an immediate pilot program for up to 40 agencies in the 11 FIFA World Cup host cities through September 2026.
Momentum is building elsewhere as well. In December 2025, the National Fraternal Order of Police formally urged Congress to close the authority gap, warning that the current patchwork system leaves local agencies unable to respond when unauthorized drones threaten stadiums, correctional facilities or disaster scenes.
Agencies that are not technologically and operationally prepared when expanded authority becomes available will be starting from scratch the day they need those capabilities most.
The case for non-lethal response
Once a drone has been detected, identified and confirmed as a threat, agencies should follow a deliberate, graduated response, beginning with non-lethal options whenever feasible.
Military counter-drone systems often rely on lasers, high-powered microwaves, missiles, kinetic weapons or drone-on-drone intercepts. While effective in combat, these approaches present significant risks of falling debris and collateral damage in populated environments.
Among the non-lethal options currently available are:
- Protocol-based interdiction: Safely taking control of an RF-controlled drone to initiate a controlled landing or return-to-home command, where legally authorized.
- Net-capture systems: Ground- or drone-launched net systems that physically capture a drone, preventing an uncontrolled crash.
- Focused jamming: Using highly directional RF or GPS disruption — and, where authorized, energy-limited laser blinding of the drone’s camera — to minimize interference with civilian communications networks and GPS services.
Where to start
For agencies beginning to evaluate counter-drone capabilities, several priorities are worth considering.
1. Build federal partnerships before they’re needed.
Understanding which federal agencies — including the FBI, DHS and FAA — have jurisdiction in various drone-related scenarios, and knowing which local assets fall under federal airspace protections, will help agencies respond more effectively as the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and pending legislation expand state and local authority.
2. Plan for technology that will continue to evolve.
The technology available today may not be sufficient tomorrow. Fiber-optic control, autonomous terminal guidance and other RF-independent systems are already being used on modern battlefields. Historically, those capabilities migrate into criminal and commercial markets much faster than many agencies expect. Counter-drone investments should be viewed as the beginning of a long-term capability, not a one-time purchase. Agencies should prioritize open architectures that can evolve as threats change.
3. Monitor the certification process.
FAA and DHS training requirements are emerging under the FY26 NDAA. Agencies that follow these developments now will be positioned to move quickly once certification programs become available.
Evaluating C-UAS technology
When evaluating counter-drone solutions, chiefs and sheriffs should look beyond marketing materials and ask five fundamental questions:
- Does this system rely entirely on RF detection? If so, it will be unable to detect autonomous or fiber-optic-guided drones.
- How does the system perform in dense urban environments? Ensure it can operate effectively despite line-of-sight obstructions, buildings and ground clutter.
- What is the false-alarm rate, and how does the system distinguish between friendly police drones, commercial drones and legitimate threats?
- What collateral risks does the mitigation technology pose to communications, Wi-Fi, GPS and nearby bystanders?
- Can the system integrate with our existing command-and-control (C2) platform or real-time crime center (RTCC)?
The future of law enforcement is above
For generations, law enforcement agencies have focused primarily on threats at ground level. Increasingly, however, future threats will come from the air.
The commercial drone market is projected to reach nearly $190 billion by 2034, according to IMARC Group. Meanwhile, MarketsandMarkets projects the military drone market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25.7%, reaching more than $109 billion by 2031.
History suggests that technologies first developed for military operations eventually find their way into civilian environments. Drones capable of surveillance, contraband delivery and autonomous operation are likely to become increasingly common around correctional facilities, major public events, transportation hubs and other critical infrastructure.
Agencies that begin building detection, tracking and non-lethal response capabilities today will be better positioned to use them as expanded legal authorities become available.
Counter-drone operations are evolving rapidly. Early detection, accurate identification and measured, non-lethal mitigation will become increasingly important operational capabilities for modern law enforcement. The legal authority to employ those tools is expanding, and agencies that prepare now will be far better positioned than those forced to build capabilities during a crisis.
Now is the time to prepare — and to look up.
About the author
Irit Idan, Ph.D., is an advisor to Frenel.ai and CEO of Idan Technology Insights Ltd., where she advises global investors, technology companies and defense leaders on emerging technologies and innovation strategy. She previously served as executive vice president for research and development at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., overseeing programs in defense, space, cybersecurity and air superiority. She also advised SoftBank’s Vision Fund on global deep-tech investment strategies.
Dr. Idan earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Technion and has received several prestigious research fellowships, including the Amelia Earhart Fellowship, the Minerva Fellowship and the Katzir Fellowship. She serves on the Technion Council and Board of Governors and is a board member for several technology and defense companies.
