UK tests microwave weapon to disable drone swarms

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The UK Ministry of Defence has efficiently trialled a brand new sort of digital weapon to fight drones that has potential implications for contemporary battlefields, together with in Ukraine. 

The “RapidDestroyer” is designed by a consortium led by French defence conglomerate Thales, and makes use of a high-power radio frequency to disable or fry electronics in drones at a distance.  

Two swarms of eight drones have been neutralised by the weapon in a latest trial, the MoD introduced on Thursday, whereas “the challenge noticed greater than 100 drones being tracked, engaged and defeated utilizing the weapon throughout all trials”.

The know-how continues to be in its early phases: the “RapidDestroyer” is carried on the again of a flatbed truck and requires a considerable amount of energy.

A US equal, the Tactical Excessive-power Operational Responder (THOR) designed by the US Air Power and quite a lot of non-public corporations, is the scale of a delivery container. Different variations embrace the Leonidas, which has been designed by tech firm Epirus for the US Navy and is for use on board ships. 

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, each armies have used drones to lethal impact for surveillance and to deploy or be used as missiles.

Drones have brought on or assisted as much as 80 per cent of fight casualties within the Ukraine struggle, in keeping with Roman Kostenko, the chair of the defence and intelligence committee in Ukraine’s parliament. 

Quite a few small and low cost drones characterize a tough goal for current countermeasures, which might solely hit one goal at a time and might be costly.

The brand new electromagnetic weapons know-how fires a large beam of power that’s comparatively low cost and able to taking down a number of drones at a time. Consultants say this makes the weapon efficient when confronted with an opposing swarm, although its indiscriminate nature makes it much less suited to defending infrastructure, resembling an airport. 

“Excessive-powered microwave methods are probably a really efficient instrument for defence towards giant numbers of [drones] and probably cruise missiles as properly, in circumstances the place their extensive cone of impact doesn’t create extra issues than it solves,” stated Justin Bronk of the Royal United Service Institute in London. 

“For sure circumstances, like bases out within the desert, or at a kinetic entrance line the place you’re not vastly involved about stuff that’s going within the course of the enemy, or for warships at sea, sure, completely, they provide a major improve in counter-drone functionality, however they aren’t a one-size-fits-all answer.”

Beneficial

The Ukraine struggle has been a see-saw battle wherein digital warfare has performed a essential function, and has compromised precision applied sciences, resembling US-supplied M142 Himars missiles, that are GPS-guided, owing to jamming. Drones have emerged as a major battlefield pressure, however they need to navigate “a wall of digital jamming”, stated one senior UK navy official. 

“It’s a measures [vs] countermeasures recreation,” he stated, including that there have been methods drones could possibly be protected against microwave weapons, resembling defending their circuits with supplies that block exterior electrical fields.  

Finally, the know-how is aimed toward missile defence as properly. The US Navy has introduced it should take a look at a high-power microwave weapon often called Mission Meteor in 2026 that’s able to taking down fast-moving anti-ship ballistic missiles. 

Illustration by Ian Bott and Bob Haslett