US company Aimlock has been all about deadly accurate fire. Now it’s also making last-resort weapons for the counter-drone fight.

• AimLock is an aided goal recognition know-how firm based in 2013.

• Its concentrating on programs have been utilized to every thing from rifles to rockets and varied drones.

• CEO Bryan Bockman informed BI about AimLock’s work within the counter-UAS house at SOF Week 2025.

Serving to troops armed with rifles, drones, mounted machine weapons, and even grenade and rocket launchers determine and lock onto targets extra simply — that is the fundamental mission of US firm AimLock, which has been growing automated concentrating on merchandise for over a decade.

At SOF Week 2025, the corporate’s CEO, Bryan Bockmon, informed Enterprise Insider about how the corporate is now specializing in autonomous weapons systems which may be essential for future warfare, programs made for defeating drones. Countering drones is an increasing space of analysis and growth, with plenty of work being completed in Ukraine, although that is not the solely nation the place this know-how is being developed.

The Ukraine war has proven that digital warfare like sign jamming and GPS spoofing will be efficient in terms of defeating enemy drones, however having a kinetic possibility, the power to shoot it, as a final resort for destroying these programs is important ought to different choices fail.

And so they might fail as a result of some drones, just like the fiber-optic drones changing into extra widespread in Ukraine or AI-enabled systems, as an example, are proof against digital warfare.

“If that does not work,” Bockmon stated of electronic warfare, then “that is the final line of protection.”

Defeating drones

AimLock’s autonomous counter-drone programs are made to detect classify, and observe uncrewed aerial programs after which resolve on the very best firing resolution for taking them out.

One of many AimLock counter-UAS programs was on show at SOF Week in Tampa, Florida. Bockmon stated that the system was invulnerable to sign jamming and different components of digital warfare as a result of it depends on visible navigation and autonomous terminal steering.

“We develop autonomy that is specialised for weapons integration,” the CEO stated, explaining that the autonomy is find targets, aiming, monitoring, and engagement, or really firing the weapon on the goal.

What makes AimLock’s growth method fascinating is that “as an alternative of constructing specialised programs that then need to be reinvented 10 instances over to cowl the whole mission want,” Bockmon stated, it makes “generalized modules that may be tailored throughout 10 completely different missions.”

So if the warfighter wants a unique sensor or weapon system, it could discover an AimLock product to match. It reduces the event cycle, the CEO stated, decreasing prices and simplifying the method.

The corporate’s Core Concentrating on Module, or CTM, because it’s referred to as, is on the coronary heart of AimLock’s programs. It combines autonomy and firing and concentrating on parts to enhance the velocity and precision of weapons from weapons to uncrewed programs.

The CTM {hardware} is, in some instances, only a small black field with a number of plug-in retailers on high.

Bockmon stated the modularity of it and different weapons programs AimLock makes permits it “to supply new options that may adapt on the tempo of fight,” whether or not that may be a low-intensity battle or a high-intensity great power conflict in distant or contested environments with restricted communications.

Whereas the corporate has been working to refine all of this for years, its present focus is its counter-drone programs.

Counter-drone know-how has been rising in significance for years now with digital warfare, directed vitality (lasers), and different developments all geared toward defeating uncrewed programs, however the know-how is changing into crucial as drones, particularly small, cheap drones, develop into extra prolific. The Pentagon unveiled its new counter-UAS technique to handle these points final yr, however there’s plenty of work to be completed to satisfy the risk.

“We completed our first counter-UAS programs again in 2018,” Bockmon defined to BI, “they usually needed to sit on the cabinets for a very long time as a result of it was actually about how efficient will electronic warfare be sooner or later, after which how rapidly will it’s defeated.” It wasn’t clear initially how efficient digital warfare can be, but it surely’s clear now that it is not infallible.

The counter-drone mission was an enormous subject at SOF Week 2025. A number of protection business exhibitors and particular operations officers spoke to the rising want for a wide range of options to defeat hostile drones. The Protection Division has made growing a military-wide technique for countering drones a high precedence.

Learn the unique article on Business Insider