The drone doesn't just stop. It stays attached.
A passive mechanical effector that arrests a small uncrewed aircraft and then retains it, for tow, recovery and forensic examination.
No transmitter. No receiver. No power source. No software. No spectrum licence.
Australian owned, Australian developed.
- Mechanical entanglement
- Magnetic retained attachment
- Platform agnostic
- TRL 3
Conceptual Demonstration
Retention
Arrest and retention are different problems.
A capture net stops a drone. It does not necessarily hold it. A target that is arrested but not retained separates in flight or on descent, is not recovered, and is unavailable for examination.
Adage Innovations Australia builds the retention layer. Magnetic attachment elements carried by the capture formation hold the target against the net after arrest, so the aircraft arrives on the ground where you put it, intact, attached, and available.
That is the capability we protect, and it is what distinguishes this system from a net that captures and releases.
The problem
Small uncrewed aircraft are now a routine threat to airfields, ports, fuel terminals, critical infrastructure and public venues.
Existing defeat options sit at two extremes. Radiofrequency countermeasures are unlawful for civil operators in Australian airspace and tightly constrained elsewhere. Kinetic and directed energy effectors destroy the aircraft, and with it the payload, the flight data and any prospect of attribution.
Neither is available to the operator of an airport, a port or a stadium who recognises the threat and has no lawful means of acting on it.
Our approach
A family of passive capture net effectors that defeat small uncrewed aircraft by mechanical entanglement, and retain them by magnetic attachment.
Two architectures are offered independently.
Perimeter architecture, lead design. Magnetic attachment elements are carried at the periphery of the capture formation. The mesh remains a conventional non conductive polymer.
Distributed architecture. Magnetically responsive elements are carried through the mesh itself, extending retention across the whole capture surface.
Neither requires conductive fibre. Neither emits.
Why passive matters
The system carries no transmitter, no receiver, no power source, no software and no data interface.
- Spectrum free. Emits nothing. Requires no spectrum licence.
- Regulatory light. Imposes no radio condition on the host platform, operator or site.
- Cyber clean. Presents no attack surface and no electromagnetic compatibility burden.
- Certification simple. Introduces no additional certification pathway for the integrator.
In Australian airspace, that distinction determines what can lawfully be deployed at a given site.
Integration
An effector, not a system.
Designed to be tasked by an existing command and control layer and to sit within a layered counter UAS architecture without imposing sensor, network or power requirements.
Nothing to integrate electronically. No processor, no software, no protocol. What must be defined is mechanical, plus a single discrete trigger where a delivery mechanism is used.
Delivery agnostic. Pole mounted, stand off deployed, tube or cartridge launched, or carried by an aerial platform.
Open and composable. Adage Innovations Australia conforms to whatever open architecture the integrator mandates. There is no protocol to conform to and no software to certify.
Intellectual property
Twelve Australian provisional patent applications filed during 2026, drafted in house.
Coverage includes the capture architecture, peripheral functional elements, magnetic retained attachment, deployment and stowage systems, and manufacturing tooling.
Consolidation to complete and international applications is scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
Status
TRL 3. Critical function demonstrated at the bench. Components characterised individually. No integrated demonstration yet.
A Defence Export Controls assessment has been completed for the mechanical system.
Development is evidence led. Configurations that failed are recorded alongside those that worked, and design decisions are grounded in measurement rather than simulation.
Next: quantified instrumented measurement of retention force against time, oblique impact retention, and full scale deployment characterisation. An Australian manufacturing pathway is in development.
About
Adage Innovations Australia is an Australian owned company based in Victoria. All design, prototyping and intellectual property development is conducted in Australia, and the IP is held onshore.
Founded by Mark Tomisich, an Australian lawyer and long standing independent inventor.
Technical discussion is available under a confidentiality agreement.
Engagement
We are seeking:
- Systems integrators and primes evaluating novel effectors for layered counter UAS architectures.
- Research and test partners with instrumented measurement capability.
- End users with a site protection requirement and no lawful option.