For those long time readers recalling the post concerning the ‘slaughterbots,’ a counter-measure has been devised as NewScientist (24 April 2021, paywall) reports:
A mobile, high-power microwave weapon can knock down a swarm of drones at once or pick a single drone out of a group with sniper-like precision.
Anti-drone weapons, such as radio-frequency jammers, already exist, but are only effective against consumer drones – they were used at London’s Gatwick airport in 2018 to defend against a suspected drone intrusion that left flights grounded.
More advanced military models are protected against these kinds of jammers – either being equipped with jam-resistant radios or having the ability to operate autonomously without a radio link to an operator – so the Leonidas system developed by Epirus, a Los Angeles start-up, takes a different approach. The device fires a high-power microwave beam that overloads a drone’s electronics, causing it to drop out of the sky.
While existing microwave weapons are about the size of a shipping container, Leonidas fits in the back of a pickup truck. It can be controlled with great precision. “Our systems allow us the capability to widen or narrow the beam and put a null in any direction to disable enemy targets and nothing else,” says Epirus CEO Leigh Madden. The company is also working on a smaller version of the weapon that could be carried by operators on foot.
And, honestly, this seems like an irrelevant problem if you’re running from slaughterbots:
Justin Bronk at defence think tank RUSI in London notes that while microwaves may be more acceptable than guns or missiles for defending populated areas, high accuracy is needed. “In urban areas, there’s a danger of damaging the electrical power infrastructure or frying people’s electronic devices,” he says.
Your results may vary.
