Ukrainian company takes third place in NATO competition to counter FPV drones using fiber optics
The Ukrainian company DONS won the third place at the prestigious NATO Innovation Challenge 2025-II international competition, which was dedicated to the creation of solutions to combat FPV drones using fiber optic control. About this informs press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The event was held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and gathered 11 teams from eight countries, including Ukraine, USA, France, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania and Poland. The first and second places were taken by the American companies KMB Telematics Inc. and Sentradel respectively. The third place went to the Ukrainian team DONS. All participants had the opportunity to finalize their developments in cooperation with the relevant NATO structures.
“The participation of Ukrainian companies in NATO innovation hackathons is critical for accelerating the development of military technology, as it allows us to synchronize our technical requirements with the Alliance’s standards. Through the JATEC platform, we not only integrate combat experience into scalable solutions, but also ensure the interoperability of means to achieve dominance on the battlefield.” – emphasized the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Valery Churkin.
The hackathon was organized by the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC) in partnership with the NATO Command Transformation (ACT) and the Joint Center for Cyber Defense Advanced Technologies (CCDCOE). The jury included representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, JATEC and NATO.
This year’s competition set a record for the number of submitted applications – 162 were received, 42 of them from Ukrainian teams. This, as noted, indicates a high level of engineering potential and technological development in Ukraine, even in conditions of full-scale war.
