Australia's DroneShield bags contract to compete for US Army awards worth up to $500 million

Sept 30 (Reuters) - Australian counter-drone technology company DroneShield DRO.AX said on Wednesday its US unit had won the US Department of War's Domestic Shield contract, allowing it to compete for and receive orders with a ceiling value of $500 million.

Here are some details:

• Domestic Shield is an initiative focused on counter-drone protection for defence-critical infrastructure and other high-priority locations across the United States.

• The contract, a three-year procurement vehicle, allows DroneShield to compete for and receive delivery orders to help deploy counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) as a counter-force to drone warfare.

• DroneShield's DroneSentry-X Mk2 C-UAS can be deployed at mobile and fixed sites for detection, identification and tracking of multi-domain unmanned systems.

• The company said the contract does not guarantee any orders and any amounts cannot be quantified at this time.

• Shares of DroneShield were up 11.5% at A$1.80 in early trade, hitting their highest level since August 31.