The US Army has contracted Eprius to supply a new microwave weapon called the Leonidas that can hit entire swarms of enemy drones in a single shot without touching friendly aircraft.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated, small, inexpensive drones can pose a real threat on the battlefield, and this threat will only grow as technology advances. Robotic aircraft have already proven invaluable for reconnaissance, target acquisition, and even direct attack.

One scenario is an enemy attack with drone swarms;

Directed energy weapons, including lasers and microwaves, are gaining increasing attention to counter this threat. These systems come in various sizes and levels of complexity, but they all share the advantages of operating at lightning speed, being able to engage multiple targets, and using electricity as ammunition at a low cost per shot.

An example of a directed energy weapon is the high-power Leonidas microwave system. Leonidas has been in development for several years, and the new funding aims to turn the technology into prototypes that can work in the field.

Leonidas defends against drones by emitting currents of microwave energy that disable or destroy the drone’s electronics and knock it to the ground. It can even counter cruise missiles.

The principle is quite simple, but the difficulty lies in determining the most suitable waveform for operation. Previously this required replacing a large amount of hardware, but Leonidas uses software-controlled phased arrays, which simplifies reconfiguration and also requires a smaller team to work with.

Leonidas can precisely target a single drone, create a microwave wall to stop a swarm, protect certain areas of the sky, or configure itself to allow friendly drones to operate while destroying nearby enemies. It’s also an open architecture that scales easily and is designed to protect safe zones from harm to humans.

“We find that modern air defense systems are insufficient to deal with the threat of autonomous drone swarms. This contract with RCCTO brings new anti-swarm capabilities to the fight against ALS with our cost-effective, modular and upgradeable Leonidas systems.”“Epirus CEO Ken Bedingfield said.