The system's detection backbone is ELTA's own ELM-2026 radar family, offered in short-, medium-, and long-range variants (ELM-2026D, ELM-2026B, and ELM-2026BF) that push detection out to roughly 10, 15, and 20 kilometers respectively depending on which model and how many units a customer buys.^2,4 A separate COMINT receiver, added to the product in a November 2018 upgrade, listens for the radio link between a drone and its ground operator and can classify the aircraft by its transmission signature before it is ever within visual range, while an EO/IR camera provides the operator with a final visual confirmation.¹ Once a target is confirmed hostile, the jammer disrupts the drone's control and GPS links, either forcing it to abort its mission and return toward its operator or causing it to lose its navigation fix and land or crash.²

ELTA's own account, described to Defense News in 2019, puts the radar's simultaneous-tracking capacity at more than 200 targets, with the COMINT receiver and jammer each able to handle several dozen at once, a figure the company frames as sufficient to handle a coordinated multi-drone swarm rather than only a single intruder.¹ By that point the system had already been sold to more than ten countries, and IAI has continued to describe unit sales in the hundreds through the following years.^1,7 The whole detection-and-defeat chain packs onto tripods that ELTA says a single pickup truck can transport, and the baseline configuration needs only one console operator, though the system can also be built into a fixed-mast installation or mounted on a vehicle for mobile force protection.¹

At the center of Drone Guard sits ELTA's ELM-2026 family of active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, X-band, three-dimensional, and built to rotate through 360 degrees of azimuth coverage while electronically steering their beam in elevation.⁴ The longest-range member, the ELM-2026BF, is documented with an instrumented range out to roughly 40 kilometers against larger airborne targets such as aircraft and helicopters, though ELTA's own marketing for the drone-detection role specifically cites a maximum of about 20 kilometers against small, low-signature quadcopter-class targets, a figure that depends heavily on target size and radar-cross-section.^2,4 Because a radar return alone cannot reliably separate a drone from a bird or other clutter, ELTA layers an EO/IR camera onto the same mount, providing the operator a live video feed to visually confirm a track the radar or COMINT layer has already flagged.¹

The system's most distinctive layer, relative to Israeli rivals, is its dedicated COMINT receiver, added in a November 2018 hardware and software upgrade alongside an enhanced 3D radar and improved jamming components.¹ Rather than only detecting radio energy in general, as a passive RF-direction-finding sensor does, the COMINT package is built to classify a drone by decoding characteristics of its specific control-link transmission, giving the operator an identification cue before the aircraft is close enough for EO/IR confirmation. Once a target is confirmed, ELTA's jammer directs a narrow, directional beam at the drone's control and GPS frequencies, a design the company says lets it jam one hostile drone without contaminating nearby civilian radio channels or GPS reception, a concern that matters heavily for systems deployed near airports or dense urban areas.⁹

A software command-and-control layer fuses the radar, COMINT, and EO/IR tracks into a single operator display, and IAI's fifth-generation refresh of the product, unveiled at the AUSA exhibition in October 2025, layered in expanded artificial-intelligence-assisted threat analysis on top of that fusion, aimed specifically at faster decision-making against coordinated drone swarms and one-way-attack loitering munitions rather than only lone reconnaissance drones.¹⁰ Gen 5 also broadened deployment options beyond the original tripod-and-pickup-truck form factor to include lightweight vehicle-mounted convoy-protection kits and fixed installations built into buildings or ships, while keeping the same interchangeable, modular sensor philosophy that let earlier generations mix and match radar tier, jammer count, and additional customer-specified sensors.¹⁰

IAI revealed Drone Guard on 3 November 2015, describing a system built around adapted 3D radar and electro-optical technology specifically tuned to pick out slow, low-flying, low-radar-signature targets that conventional air-defense radars were designed to ignore as clutter.² Sales followed quickly. By mid-2016, ELTA's leadership was already describing what an SP's Aviation report characterized as steadily growing demand across military, homeland-security, and civilian protection customers, with the radar offered in the 10, 15, and 20-kilometer ELM-2026D/B/BF tiers depending on a site's needs.³

Drone Guard's clearest documented early operational role came at the November 2018 G20 Summit and the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in Argentina, where ELTA's system provided drone detection and disruption security, a deployment IAI has continued to cite in its own marketing years later as proof of large-event, real-world performance.^1,9 The following September, the Portuguese Navy specifically invited ELTA to bring Drone Guard, built around the ELM-2026B radar, to the REP(MUS)19 NATO maritime unmanned-systems exercise near the Troia peninsula south of Lisbon, where the system demonstrated detection and defeat capability against a simulated drone attack on port infrastructure alongside roughly 800 personnel and dozens of unmanned vehicles from Portugal and other NATO members.¹³

IAI pushed a genuinely novel capability into the product line in June 2020, partnering with Israeli startup Iron Drone to integrate that company's autonomous interceptor drones, marketed as Iron Drone Raider, directly with Drone Guard's radar. Iron Drone's chief executive Matan Melamed described the tie-up as pairing Drone Guard's detection strength with his company's steering and homing technology.⁷ The combined system lets Drone Guard's detection chain cue one or more small interceptor drones, launched automatically from a docking station, to close on a hostile target using onboard sensors and computer vision and physically collide with it, giving ELTA's otherwise purely non-kinetic system a genuine hard-kill option without requiring a separate gun, missile, or laser effector.⁷ IAI backed the broader push with a reported investment of more than 100 million shekels in a new Land Systems facility in Beersheba tied to the work.⁷

Export orders accumulated through the early 2020s, though the customers themselves have mostly gone unnamed in public reporting. ELTA secured a contract in mid-2021 for dozens of Drone Guard systems to an undisclosed South Asian country, reported at the time to be worth tens of millions of dollars.⁵ A further contract followed in September 2022, this time for several dozen units of DroneGuard ComJam, a lighter mobile variant covered below, to an undisclosed Asian customer, with IAI/ELTA vice president Adi Dulberg framing the sale around the growing threat unauthorized drones pose to borders and populated areas.^8,9 ELTA's own account of that 2022 deal stated the company had by then delivered several hundred DroneGuard ComJam systems in total to various customers, with the Argentina G20 deployment specifically cited among that installed base.⁹

ELTA continued testing the system against demanding civilian scenarios into 2020, running trials at multiple large international airports across Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia specifically timed during normal daily operating hours, and reporting that Drone Guard detected and neutralized test drones without disrupting flight operations or alerting terminal passengers.⁶ IAI unveiled the fifth-generation Drone Guard at the AUSA exhibition in October 2025, folding in expanded AI-assisted threat analysis and consolidating deployment configurations across fixed, vehicle-mounted, and maritime installations, and pitching the refreshed product specifically against the newer threat mix of coordinated drone swarms and one-way-attack loitering munitions that had come to dominate battlefield reporting from Ukraine and the Middle East by the mid-2020s.¹⁰

Public reporting reviewed for this article documents no confirmed case of Drone Guard itself downing a drone during an actual hostile attack, as distinct from live-fire demonstrations, security-event standby duty at events such as Argentina's 2018 G20 Summit, and the REP(MUS)19 exercise in Portugal. Within Israel, Drone Guard is grouped by IAI alongside the company's MMR and Green Pine radars as one of its established, field-proven Israeli air-defense products, though the specific units, sites, and any drone intercepts credited to the system domestically are not broken out in public sourcing the way combat intercepts are for some other Israeli systems.¹² That gap should not be read as evidence the system has failed in the field. It instead reflects the general secrecy that surrounds Israeli base-protection deployments and the fact that most of Drone Guard's publicly documented history runs through export contracts and security-event standby roles rather than a single well-covered combat engagement.

The full Drone Guard configuration, radar, COMINT, EO/IR, and jammer fused under one command console, represents ELTA's flagship offering, and its detection range scales with which ELM-2026 radar tier a customer buys, from roughly 10 kilometers on the short-range ELM-2026D up to about 20 kilometers on the long-range ELM-2026BF.^2,4

DroneGuard ComJam is a lighter, radar-free sibling built around passive RF detection and active jamming alone, without the flagship's dedicated 3D radar.⁹ Public technical disclosures for ComJam describe frequency coverage from 400 to 6,000 megahertz, a maximum detection range of roughly 5 kilometers, a claimed direction-of-arrival accuracy of about 2 degrees in its tripod-mounted form, and a payload of up to 28 kilograms that can be mounted on a vehicle, a structure, or the ground.⁹ ELTA has described ComJam's passive-detection and active-jamming elements as able to operate independently or together, giving a buyer a cheaper, more portable option than the full radar-equipped system where 20-kilometer detection range is not required.⁹ ELTA's statement that it has delivered several hundred DroneGuard ComJam systems in total, more than the figure typically cited for the radar-equipped flagship, suggests ComJam, not the full Drone Guard, accounts for the bulk of the product family's real-world sales.⁹

The Iron Drone-integrated configuration, added from June 2020, pairs Drone Guard's detection radar with Iron Drone Raider interceptor drones launched from an automated docking station, giving the otherwise non-kinetic system a hard-kill option that neutralizes a target through direct collision rather than jamming or GPS spoofing alone.⁷ IAI's fifth-generation Drone Guard, unveiled in October 2025, folds the AESA radar, passive COMINT/SIGINT, EO/IR, and COMJAM elements from earlier generations into one consolidated, more heavily AI-assisted product line rather than introducing an entirely new sensor concept.¹⁰

Israel is Drone Guard's home market, and IAI groups the system alongside its MMR and Green Pine radars as an established, field-proven part of the country's own air-defense industrial base, though public sourcing does not break out specific Israeli units or installations using it.¹²

Argentina fielded Drone Guard for the November 2018 G20 Summit and the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games, ELTA's clearest publicly documented security deployment for the system, though public reporting does not clarify whether Argentina purchased the equipment outright or contracted ELTA for event-security services using it.^1,9

Beyond Israel and Argentina, ELTA's confirmed export customers remain unnamed in public reporting. A South Asian country bought dozens of Drone Guard systems in a deal reported in mid-2021 at tens of millions of dollars, and a separate, undisclosed Asian country ordered several dozen DroneGuard ComJam units in September 2022.^5,8 Portugal's navy hosted and exercised with a Drone Guard system at the September 2019 REP(MUS)19 exercise by invitation rather than as a confirmed purchaser.¹³ A February 2025 report alleging secret supply of Drone Guard to Maldives and Sri Lanka could not be independently verified for this article and is treated as unconfirmed.¹¹

Drone Guard's closest published Israeli rival is Rafael's Drone Dome, and the two systems are frequently confused in casual reporting given their similar naming and shared national origin, but they differ in both sensor architecture and defeat philosophy. Drone Dome multiplexes radar, EO/IR, and RF direction-finding sourced from three separate vendors (RADA, Controp, and Netline) under Rafael's own command shell, and offers an optional hard-kill laser variant, Drone Dome-L, as a distinctly named, separately demonstrated product.¹ Drone Guard instead keeps its radar, COMINT, EO/IR, and jamming vertically integrated inside ELTA itself, substitutes a dedicated COMINT receiver for Drone Dome's RF-direction-finding approach to classification, and reaches for a hard-kill capability through an external partnership (Iron Drone's interceptor drones) rather than an in-house laser.

Both companies chase the same customer base of militaries, homeland-security agencies, and civil airport operators, and neither has a confirmed, sourced record of downing a hostile drone in an actual attack rather than in a demonstration or standby role.¹ The practical choice between them comes down to which classification approach a buyer trusts more (COMINT signal analysis versus RF direction-finding) and whether a customer wants a single-vendor hard-kill laser bundled in from the start or is comfortable adding kinetic capability through a separate interceptor-drone partner later, as ELTA has done.

Drone Guard also sits in an entirely different category from SmartShooter's SMASH 2000, another Israeli counter-drone product frequently discussed alongside it. SMASH 2000 is a clip-on rifle sight that assists a soldier's own aim against a drone the soldier has already spotted, a purely kinetic, line-of-sight, human-in-the-loop tool with no radar, jammer, or standoff detection of its own.¹ Drone Guard is the opposite kind of system, a standoff detect-and-defeat suite meant to find a drone kilometers away and neutralize it, by jamming or by cueing an interceptor, before a human ever needs to aim a weapon at it. The two are complementary layers in a site-defense plan rather than competitors, and a buyer fielding SMASH-equipped infantry would still need something like Drone Guard, or a comparable radar-based system, to detect drones beyond visual range in the first place.

MASS Assessment

MASS scoring rates Drone Guard across ten components tied to what is publicly documented about the system, rather than a single blended figure.

Mobility (88) is Drone Guard's standout component. The system is designed around a tripod-mounted or pickup-truck-transportable radar and a single-operator console, letting a battalion or base-defense unit reposition it without the fixed installation many rival radar-led systems require. Multi-target capability (70) trails by comparison. A single ELM-2026 unit tracks a large but finite number of simultaneous contacts, and extending coverage against a genuine drone swarm requires networking multiple radar units together rather than relying on one system alone, a gap Drone Dome's multi-radar configuration option addresses more directly.

How does IAI Drone Guard work? Drone Guard detects small drones with a 3D X-band radar, cross-checks the contact against a dedicated COMINT receiver that listens for the drone's control-link transmissions and an EO/IR camera for visual confirmation, then defeats confirmed threats by jamming the drone's control and GPS links, or, in the Iron Drone-integrated configuration, by launching an autonomous interceptor drone to physically collide with the target.^1,7

What are IAI Drone Guard's specifications? The system's radar comes in three tiers, the ELM-2026D, ELM-2026B, and ELM-2026BF, offering roughly 10, 15, and 20 kilometers of detection range respectively, with the radar capable of tracking more than 200 simultaneous contacts, while the COMINT receiver and jammer can each handle several dozen at once.^1,4

Is Drone Guard the same system as Rafael's Drone Dome? No. Both are Israeli counter-drone systems with similarly styled names, but Drone Guard is made by IAI's ELTA Systems subsidiary and centers on a proprietary ELM-2026 radar and COMINT receiver, while Drone Dome is a separate Rafael product built from RADA radar, Controp EO/IR, and Netline RF/jamming components with an optional laser hard-kill variant.¹

What is DroneGuard ComJam? ComJam is a lighter, radar-free version of Drone Guard built around passive RF detection and active jamming alone, covering 400 to 6,000 megahertz with a roughly 5-kilometer detection range, marketed for buyers who do not need the full radar-equipped system's 20-kilometer reach.⁹

Is Drone Guard still in production and in service? Yes. IAI unveiled a fifth-generation refresh of Drone Guard at the AUSA exhibition in October 2025, and ELTA has continued reporting new export contracts, including undisclosed South Asian and Asian customers in 2021 and 2022, through the mid-2020s.^5,8,10

How much does a Drone Guard system cost? IAI has never publicly disclosed per-unit pricing for Drone Guard or DroneGuard ComJam. A 2021 contract for dozens of Drone Guard systems to an undisclosed South Asian country was reported at tens of millions of dollars in total, but that figure covers a multi-unit order rather than a single-system price.⁵

Has Drone Guard actually shot down a drone in combat? Public reporting reviewed for this article documents live-fire and exercise demonstrations, plus standby security duty at events such as Argentina's 2018 G20 Summit, but no confirmed combat interception credited specifically to Drone Guard.