Chinese police forces placed 31 of the 132 drone purchases posted on China’s national government procurement website in the week to 20 October, by FlightBrief’s count. Across all buyers, 14 purchases were for equipment to detect or bring down drones. Two of them call for lasers.
Shanghai police’s Huangpu branch opened a tender on 16 October for “drone laser countermeasure equipment 2.0”. The budget is ¥2.6 million, about $390,000. Bids close on 5 November, and the winner must deliver within 30 days.
Counter-drone stations in Xinjiang
In Tashkurgan county, in Xinjiang, the local Communist Party’s political and legal affairs commission is buying counter-drone stations at three sites for ¥12.2 million, about $1.8 million. A correction of 14 October names two core items: full-band radio detection and a “low-altitude high-energy laser strike” system. Bids close on 30 October. Tashkurgan borders Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Elsewhere in Xinjiang, an unnamed unit in Hotan prefecture awarded ¥2.44 million on 20 October for jammers and detectors. Most come from Beijing Lizheng, including a truck-mounted set at ¥600,000 and 25 drone-signal identifiers.
Guizhou’s provincial police are buying both sides at once. Their ¥4.45 million tender covers “combat” drones, ramming drones and net-capture drones, plus video-link jammers, a phased-array radar and kinetic interceptors. Bids open on 21 October.
DJI and five strike FPVs
Xi’an’s counter-terrorism police closed a ¥624,280 purchase on 19 October. It buys 10 DJI Matrice 4T kits, a DJI FlyCart 100 cargo drone and 18 DJI Avata 2 drones. It also buys five SpeedyBee FPV racing drones listed as “strike” drones, and five more for reconnaissance. The supplier is an office-supplies company in Tianjin.
DJI’s grip showed in a failure. On 20 October Hainan’s Public Security Department scrapped its second attempt to buy drones for an island expressway. The reason given: the core products of every bid were DJI, leaving fewer than three brands.
Most of the week’s buyers were not police. Schools placed 52 purchases, mostly vocational colleges fitting out drone training rooms. Guizhou’s bids open on 21 October, and Shanghai’s laser tender closes on 5 November.
