San Diego-based defense contractor helps U.S. military overseas identify drone threats

San Diego is home to more than 130,000 active-duty service members and a $60 billion defense industry. One of the companies contributing to that sector is Digital Force Technologies, or DFT, which partners with the United States military to support threat detection efforts through their technology. 

The company, which is based in Sorrento Valley, has been in operation for more than 25 years and works exclusively with the federal government.

“We detect and track, and we mitigate,” said Justin MacLaurin, the CEO of Digital Force Technologies. 

MacLaurin said drones have fundamentally changed modern warfare, particularly in recent years, as lower-cost systems have become more common.

“Drones have changed warfare,” MacLaurin said. “It definitely is a very low-cost option with a large impact, and so you can’t put the cat in the bag. You can’t un-ring the bell. These things are here to stay, so now it’s really how do we mitigate those?”

DFT develops technology designed to identify and address unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, among other vehicles. While MacLaurin said he cannot disclose specific deployment locations, he confirmed the company’s primary customer is the U.S. military.

“We can’t say where our technology is being used, but it is being used by the U.S. military,” MacLaurin said. “That is our primary customer, and so we know that it’s out there. We do a lot of exercise training, all those types of things, in overseas countries.”

Amid the war against Iran, MacLaurin said American forces are encountering small first-person view drones, commonly known as FPV drones. These systems are relatively inexpensive compared with the cost of countering them.

“You’re starting to take a $1,000 drone, and, to knock it out of the air, the U.S. would use a Patriot missile, which is $3-4 million, so, $3-4 million versus $500 to a $1,000 — that is in the benefit for the adversary,” MacLaurin said. “They can swarm us with hundreds, if not thousands, of those, and deplete or saturate our resources to counter them.”

MacLaurin also pointed to Shahed drones, currently being used by Iran, that have about a 10-foot wingspan and a range of roughly 1,000 miles. While those systems are effective in the Middle East, MacLaurin said they pose a limited threat to the United States, even if launched from a ship.

“We did the math,” MacLaurin said. “If they’re a thousand miles off the coast and they launch one, it takes about nine hours to get here. Our response time from Miramar is about 30 minutes.”

MacLaurin added that despite heightened awareness, he remains confident in U.S. capabilities.

“I rest assured, and I tell my kids that same thing: There are technologies and companies that have been working on this for a long time and that are here to support the U.S.,” Maclaurin said.

MacLaurin added that the United States is currently working on several programs to recreate low-cost drones in order to reduce reliance on more expensive systems when responding to cheaper threats.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.