DroneShield Ltd (ASX: DRO) shares are pushing higher again on Thursday after a brief pause this morning.
At the time of writing, the counter-drone technology company's shares are up a further 3% to a new record high of $1.61.
This latest gain means that the high-flying share is now up 77% since this time last month.
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Why are DroneShield shares rising again?
Investors have been snapping up the company's shares again this morning in response to the release of an announcement.
According to the release, DroneShield has received an order valued at $4.7 million from a new non-government Swiss international customer.
The order will see the company provide the customer with multiple vehicle-based counter-drone (C-UxS) systems.
The release notes that the vehicle-based solution will offer a rapidly deployable C-UxS platform that can be operated in both static and on-the-move (OTM) missions for convoy and mobile VIP protection.
It provides a new level of operational flexibility by incorporating DroneShield's radio frequency detection and mitigation, radar, and electro-optical sensors, into a single vehicle-based platform. The system will be powered by the DroneSentry-C2 command-and-control system, including its proprietary AI-based sensor fusion engine.
The AI-based sensor fusion engine can track an object to determine its classification and predict its trajectory. It can also assess the threat level. It does this by intelligently determining its threat based on a wide range of data types. Another positive is that it has been designed for complex, high noise environments, with inconsistent data inputs.
The end customer for this technology has not been named by DroneShield. However, it has been described as a high-profile Government agency.
Payments for the order are expected to be received throughout 2024, with the final payment expected to land in the first quarter of 2025.
DroneShield's CEO, Oleg Vornik, was pleased with the news and believes it demonstrates the quality of the company's technology. He commented:
This order highlights DroneShield expertise not only as a maker of cutting-edge AI-based C-UAS sensor and effector technologies, but also a system integrator, for demanding applications that involve multiple sensor and effector modalities, operating in tough conditions. We are excited to have this new customer onboard and doing more work with them over coming years.
Following today's gain, DroneShield shares have now risen by almost 600% since this time last year. This means that a $10,000 investment would have grown to be worth close to $70,000 today.
