{"id":33298,"date":"2021-06-15T11:28:57","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T16:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=33298"},"modified":"2021-06-15T11:29:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T16:29:44","slug":"preventing-keith-laumers-bolo-ctd-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/06\/15\/preventing-keith-laumers-bolo-ctd-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing Keith Laumer\u2019s Bolo, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those long time readers recalling the post concerning the ‘slaughterbots,’<\/a> a counter-measure has been devised as NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (24 April 2021, paywall) reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Anti-drone weapons, such as\u00a0radio-frequency jammers<\/a>, already exist, but are only effective against consumer drones \u2013 they were used at London\u2019s Gatwick airport in 2018 to\u00a0defend against a suspected drone intrusion that left flights grounded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More advanced military models are protected against these kinds of jammers \u2013 either being equipped with jam-resistant radios or having the ability to operate autonomously without a radio link to an operator \u2013 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\u2019s electronics, causing it to drop out of the sky.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cOur 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,\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, honestly, this seems like an irrelevant problem if you’re running from slaughterbots:<\/p>\n

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. \u201cIn urban areas, there\u2019s a danger of damaging the electrical power infrastructure or frying people\u2019s electronic devices,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Your results may vary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33301,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33298\/revisions\/33301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}