Drones have revolutionized the battlefield, compelling combatants to devise new strategies to mitigate their damage and develop advanced technologies and weapons to effectively and cheaply shoot them down.

Air defense systems traditionally use expensive missiles to intercept low-cost drones, quickly depleting their capabilities when faced with swarm attacks. This has necessitated the development of specialized, cost-effective, and rapidly producible anti-drone systems.

In response, Frankenburg Technologies in Estonia has developed a low-cost, AI-powered mini-missile designed to counter low-altitude drones. This anti-aircraft missile, dubbed Mark 1, will soon undergo testing in Ukraine against Russian drones, whose attacks on Ukrainian territory have intensified. Just three days into 2025, approximately 300 drones were launched in a single attack.

The missile employs AI technologies, particularly computer vision, to identify drones flying at altitudes of up to 2 kilometers. This enables it to autonomously track targets without requiring continuous location updates from radar.

The company aims to produce a cost-competitive anti-drone missile system. It expects the Mark 1 to be ten times cheaper and one hundred times faster to produce than current systems, addressing the challenges posed by the high cost and slow production of traditional anti-aircraft missiles compared to the rapid production of drones.