Epirus, an American startup based in Los Angeles, has an idea to eliminate enemy drone swarms: a weapon that emits high-power microwave beams.
The weapon, nicknamed Leonidas, is small enough to fit on the back of a pickup truck and can emit powerful microwaves that take down drones, even by the dozens.
The Seven Killer
“Our microwave systems allow us the ability to widen or narrow the beam and point in any direction to disable enemy targets,” says the CEO Leigh Madden
Epirus is working on an even smaller device that could also be carried by operators on the ground.
During a demonstration for a government contractor earlier this year, the microwave system was able to eliminate all 66 target drones, sometimes eliminating many at once.
Microwave anti-drone cannon
Leonidas uses a series of solid-state gallium nitride emitters, similar to those found in modern 5G communications equipment. These emitters are more compact than traditional radar devices and can be individually controlled to guide the microwave beam with high accuracy.
Accuracy is very important, because if the weapon misses its target it could damage electrical power infrastructure or fry people's electronic devices
Justin Bronk, researcher at the RUSI think tank of the British defense
Considering the recent boom in the use of drones in a number of sectors (including goods delivery) I suspect that the demand for “anti-drone systems” will soon grow too.
It's the fault of the drones, if you recall, the shutdown of an entire international airport on suspicion of terrorism in 2018. A year later, in 2019, a drone attack disabled the Abqaiq oil processing plant in Saudi Arabia.
