Austrian startup shows off APS1 anti-drone turrets in Vienna

Austrian startup GuardAero showed its APS1 drone-defense system for military vehicles to Arnold Kammel, secretary general of Austria’s Ministry of Defence, during the Austrian Armed Forces’ National Day display at Vienna’s Heldenplatz on Oct. 26.

The Graz-based company shared images of the presentation on social media, saying APS1 was shown as part of its research project with the Austrian Armed Forces and that the system is made in and for Austria. APS1 is an active protection system, a self-defense unit fitted to a vehicle that detects an incoming threat and destroys it before impact. GuardAero built it specifically to stop drones attacking vehicles at close range.

Photos from Heldenplatz show the system mounted on the turret of a combat vehicle. It uses two separate rotating turrets, each carrying a block of 12 barrels arranged in three rows of four, and each fitted with its own optical sensor. A cluster of camera blocks at the base of the mount handles visual identification of incoming threats.

Small first-person-view drones, flown by a pilot watching a live video feed and steered straight into their target, have become one of the most common threats to vehicles in the war in Ukraine. APS1 is designed as a last line of defense against those drones when they get past other layers of protection.

The system tracks approaching drones with passive sensors, meaning it watches for threats without emitting signals that could give the vehicle away. GuardAero currently uses a shotgun-based kinetic effector, firing shot to knock the drone out of the air. Because the turrets rotate, each can turn its barrels toward a drone coming from any direction.

GuardAero has also fitted APS1 to an Austrian Armed Forces Mitsubishi L200 pickup and has completed several live-fire tests on a dirt road in eastern Austria, shooting down attacking drones. The company says the system is vehicle-independent, so it can be fitted to different platforms, and its current work focuses on integrating it with other military vehicles.

The startup was founded in 2025 and first drew attention when it won the innovation competition at the Austrian Defence Innovation Conference in Klagenfurt in January 2025. It is funded by private capital in the low seven figures, according to Austrian military magazine Militär Aktuell, and in May 2026 it presented APS1 with the Austrian Armed Forces on a military vehicle at the Europa-Forum Wachau technology day. Earlier this month it won the Protection Award at Defence Innovation Pitch Day 2026 in Munich.

Other companies are working on similar close-range shields built around multi-barrel launchers and passive sensors. In the United States, Picket Defense Systems has developed the Inferno RTC, a rotating turret that sweeps its barrels through a full 360-degree hemisphere and fires shotgun-type and small-caliber rounds after detecting drones with acoustic sensors and cameras. Its barrels sit at fixed angles and spin continuously, so the system fires without first turning toward the target, while APS1 swivels its barrel blocks to face an approaching drone. Germany’s Mehler Protection is pursuing the same goal with SCILT, which fires shotgun-type interceptors cued by optical cameras.

APS1 would sit at the bottom of Austria’s drone-defense layers. Higher up, the Austrian Armed Forces are buying 36 Rheinmetall Skyranger 30 turrets on Pandur 6×6 wheeled armored vehicles, combining a 30 mm cannon and Mistral missiles, with the first systems due to arrive in 2027.