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The UK Ministry of Defence has efficiently trialled a brand new kind 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 technology remains to be in 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 Drive and numerous non-public firms, is the dimensions 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, each for surveillance and to deploy — or be used as — missiles.
Drones have induced or assisted as much as 80 per cent of fight casualties within the Ukraine warfare, in line 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 troublesome goal for countermeasures, which may solely hit one goal at a time and might be costly.
The brand new electromagnetic weapons expertise 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, similar to an airport.
“Excessive-powered microwave methods are doubtlessly a really efficient instrument for defence towards massive numbers of [drones] and doubtlessly 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 path 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 resolution.”
The Ukraine warfare has been a see-saw battle wherein digital warfare has performed a crucial function, and has compromised precision applied sciences, similar to US-supplied M142 Himars missiles, that are GPS-guided, as a consequence of jamming. Drones have emerged as a major battlefield drive, however they need to navigate “a wall of digital jamming”, stated one senior UK navy official.
“It is a measures [vs] countermeasures recreation,” he stated, including that there have been methods drones could possibly be protected against microwave weapons, similar to defending their circuits with supplies that block exterior electrical fields.
Finally, the expertise is geared toward missile defence as properly. The US Navy has introduced that it’ll take a look at a high-power microwave weapon often known as Venture Meteor in 2026 that’s able to taking down fast-moving anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Graphic by Ian Bott and Bob Haslett
