“Rather than being a point and shoot offensive weapon, Leonidas is meant to provide defensive area coverage, creating less a contiguous force field in the surrounding area and more an area of denial where no unfriendly drone system can operate.”
“The core of the Leonidas system is its use of high power microwave energy fired in beams that create an electromagnetic pulse or EMP.”
“EMPs are nothing new in modern warfare, and their effects are well known, primarily their ability to disable electronic systems.”
“But rather than, say, the natural EMPs that come from lightning strikes, or the uncontrolled EMPs that result from the detonation of nuclear weapons, the EMPs that come from the Leonidas system are able to be channeled precisely.”
“Cutting in a wide beam, they can fry anything in their path neutralizing say an oncoming drone swarm all at once, orthey can focus on precise individual targets, sniping drones out of the sky one by one as soon as they violate perimeters.”
“Using specialized transistors rather than traditional magnetrons to generate its microwave beam, Leonidas is considered more compact than would otherwise be expected for a weapon of this kind, and at a relatively low cost of energy expenditure.”
“It can focus a beam for a relatively long duration of time, or fire off shots in Rapid succession relying on a digitally beamformed antenna that beam is kept tight and highly precise, such that it’s unlikely that nearby friendly drones will be impacted when the beam is targeted against a single foe.”
“Leonidas can fire very rapidly without overheating, and its effect on a target is near instantaneous, rather than needing to train the beam on the target for any length of time. It doesn’t require reloading, and its voltage is low enough that humans nearby aren’t in danger from its emissions.” All of this sounds almost too good to be true.
“It’s efficient, it’s easily transported, and by all indications it’s highly effective against the consumer grade drone technology that the US military is so worried about. Any drone of that sort that comes into Leonidas’s protective bubble will be fried, regardless of the specific internal electronics.”
It too can fit on a Stryker. It can also fit in the back of a pickup truck “without too much trouble.”
“The system has been adapted into an aerial attachment pot, giving it the option to be fitted onto a heavy lift drone of its own and defend in midair.”
“It’s just as successful in stopping fully autonomous drones that don’t require active operator control in order to function.”
Can also take out sea drones.
Designed to be modular and upgradeable.
“The ground-based version is ready for testing. In January of 2023, the U.S. cut the Epirus corporation a check for $66 million after it beat out six different competitors, with the expectation that the check would be used to develop four prototypes as soon as possible. 14 months later, all four prototypes have been delivered and for about half a year now, they’ve been in the hands of the US government.” Some are reportedly being tested in the middle east.
Called Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2, the U.S. program will include a range of technologies—guided-missile interceptors, high-energy lasers and high-power microwave blasters—to shoot down multiple threats and provide a layered defense against weapons such as drone swarms. Each of these technologies is already in development and being readied for troops over the next two years.
IFPC’s high-power microwave component should be ready for operational use as soon as next summer. In January the Army tapped a Los Angeles–based company called Epirus to build four prototype microwave systems as one layer of its planned IFPC. These prototypes are versions of Epirus’s Leonidas system. Each one sits on a wheeled trailer that can be detached for remote operation and has a square panel that rests on a gimbal so it can pivot 360 degrees. This panel is packed with software-controlled radio frequency amplifiers that tailor the energy and frequency of the microwave blast.
“The Leonidas design incorporates a lot of lessons identified coming out of Ukraine and a lot of forecasting into what we think a fight in the Western Pacific might look like,” says Aaron Barruga, vice president of federal growth at Epirus.
Leonidas’ HPM prototype passed muster with Army evaluators in early November, and testing is underway as the Army develops tactics, techniques and procedures for the system’s operational use. The goal is to put the four prototype high-power microwave weapons into the hands of operationally deployed units—possibly in the Middle East—next summer.
All of this sounds a bit too good to be true. Designing microwave ICs means dealing with mixed signal and analog design, and analog is something of a dark art. RF engineers are in high demand and pricey when you find them. Various microwave weapons have been announced over the years, and none seem to have made it to volume production.
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9 Responses to “A Third Drone Defense System: Microwave EMP”
Microwave shielding is advancing by leaps and bounds. The latest shielding material provides 92+ dB of attenuation with a thickness of less than 45 μm.
If your goal is stopping drone ‘technicals,’ that is civilian drones adapted to carry weapons, it doesn’t much matter what the state of the art shielding materials can do, because civilian drones won’t carry it. You’d have to rebuild the things to add shielding to them, and at that point you may as well have purpose-built drones.
If your point is that the EMP gun can’t stop every drone one can think of… sure, and? You don’t need the cheap-to-use systems to take out everything, just the mass swarms of cheap drones. If it can be used against more sophisticated targets, that’s a bonus, not a core requirement.
Your opponent either wastes his time with drones that can be easily swatted, or he spends more on his drones to proof them against the weapon; in either case, there are fewer drones (or at least fewer something; money is fungible, but limited,) because of the weapon.
I have seen analog EE designers chased down and recruited in the parking lot of the company from which they were just layed off. Nobody was stalking any of the RIF’d digital circuit designers with a job offer.
No place i worked had RF engineers, but I am told they are in quite high demand, with the remaining mil contractors competing with the cell phone and wifi industries. High power RF is still something of a niche, but the heavy hitters there are pretty much never out of a job unless they want to be.
Analog and RF design are the specializations I have been recommending to baby EEs for a couple decades as the most downturn proof.
Analog/RF engineering is a good field with steadier job prospects than what-is-hot-right-now software digital whatever, but much of the work requires a lab with expensive test equipment, sometimes ridiculously expensive…mm-wave connectors can cost $400 and wear out after 100 cycles, so each time you connect a cable it’s $8 of wear and tear. Remote work is therefore hard to come by and relocation is often required.
“If your goal is stopping drone ‘technicals,’ that is civilian drones adapted to carry weapons, it doesn’t much matter what the state of the art shielding materials can do, because civilian drones won’t carry it. You’d have to rebuild the things to add shielding to them, and at that point you may as well have purpose-built drones.”
When a 0.0017 inch thick foil can effect 92+ dB attenuation, it is not much of a challenge to protect the control module of any Chinese toy drone without any weight penalty.
Actually, it’s quite a challenge because you need to disassemble and reassemble each of the drones by hand. And that Chinese consumer crap is notorious for not being easily opened or modified.
“Actually, it’s quite a challenge because you need to disassemble and reassemble each of the drones by hand. And that Chinese consumer crap is notorious for not being easily opened or modified.”
Lots of repair parts for Chinese toy drones offered online, including motherboards. Repair videos, too.
Must not be too difficult to open them up. After all, both the Ukrainians and Russians are extensively modifying them to carry and drop RPG warheads.
Meanwhile, adversary drones are flying unhindered over US mainland military bases.
Microwave shielding is advancing by leaps and bounds. The latest shielding material provides 92+ dB of attenuation with a thickness of less than 45 μm.
If it does work, the question then arises – how long before the Chinese steal it?
If your goal is stopping drone ‘technicals,’ that is civilian drones adapted to carry weapons, it doesn’t much matter what the state of the art shielding materials can do, because civilian drones won’t carry it. You’d have to rebuild the things to add shielding to them, and at that point you may as well have purpose-built drones.
If your point is that the EMP gun can’t stop every drone one can think of… sure, and? You don’t need the cheap-to-use systems to take out everything, just the mass swarms of cheap drones. If it can be used against more sophisticated targets, that’s a bonus, not a core requirement.
Your opponent either wastes his time with drones that can be easily swatted, or he spends more on his drones to proof them against the weapon; in either case, there are fewer drones (or at least fewer something; money is fungible, but limited,) because of the weapon.
I have seen analog EE designers chased down and recruited in the parking lot of the company from which they were just layed off. Nobody was stalking any of the RIF’d digital circuit designers with a job offer.
No place i worked had RF engineers, but I am told they are in quite high demand, with the remaining mil contractors competing with the cell phone and wifi industries. High power RF is still something of a niche, but the heavy hitters there are pretty much never out of a job unless they want to be.
Analog and RF design are the specializations I have been recommending to baby EEs for a couple decades as the most downturn proof.
Analog/RF engineering is a good field with steadier job prospects than what-is-hot-right-now software digital whatever, but much of the work requires a lab with expensive test equipment, sometimes ridiculously expensive…mm-wave connectors can cost $400 and wear out after 100 cycles, so each time you connect a cable it’s $8 of wear and tear. Remote work is therefore hard to come by and relocation is often required.
“If your goal is stopping drone ‘technicals,’ that is civilian drones adapted to carry weapons, it doesn’t much matter what the state of the art shielding materials can do, because civilian drones won’t carry it. You’d have to rebuild the things to add shielding to them, and at that point you may as well have purpose-built drones.”
When a 0.0017 inch thick foil can effect 92+ dB attenuation, it is not much of a challenge to protect the control module of any Chinese toy drone without any weight penalty.
Actually, it’s quite a challenge because you need to disassemble and reassemble each of the drones by hand. And that Chinese consumer crap is notorious for not being easily opened or modified.
“Actually, it’s quite a challenge because you need to disassemble and reassemble each of the drones by hand. And that Chinese consumer crap is notorious for not being easily opened or modified.”
Lots of repair parts for Chinese toy drones offered online, including motherboards. Repair videos, too.
Must not be too difficult to open them up. After all, both the Ukrainians and Russians are extensively modifying them to carry and drop RPG warheads.