US Marines sets sight on Epirus’ microwave weapon to defeat drone swarmshttps://interestingengineering.com/military/us-microwave-weapon-epirus-drone-swarmsThe country has awarded tech company Epirus an $11-million contract to deliver HAVOC, a vehicle-mounted high-power microwave system designed to disable multiple drones simultaneously.
Derived from the company’s Leonidas weapon, the High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability will be integrated across manned and unmanned Marine Corps ground vehicles.
The contract includes training, servicing and sustainment support, along with options for another system and related capabilities.
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HAVOC represents the next stage of the Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm system, or ExDECS, delivered to the Marine Corps in 2025.
While ExDECS introduced a deployable “one-to-many” approach for countering drones, its successor is expected to provide three times the power, greater range and improved ruggedness.
The system uses solid-state high-power microwave weapon components and gallium nitride amplifiers to generate and strengthen electromagnetic energy.
For some reason, the idea has been spread about that the US military is cluelessly unprepared for drones. Not only will this system become one of several layers in anti-drone defenses, it will be the second generation system in that layer.
One of the techniques Russia (and probably Ukraine) has been using to shield drones from RF interference is fiberoptic bable guidance. It's not a magic bullet, since the current maximum range is 12 or 13 miles, barely past front lines support areas. Also, while systems such as this one might not jam guidance signals, it may be strong enough to disrupt drones' control electronics generally (shielding entails weight, and more weight means shorter range).
It's interesting that the output power devices are gallium nitride rather than travelling-wave or cavity tubes. Very high microwave frequency and high power are niches in which vacuum tubes still perform best. Evidently, the frequency this system operates at is not super high and/or semiconductors continue to improve.
