British troops test new drone swarm zapper

The British military recently conducted its first-ever successful, live-fire test of a new weapon designed to cost-effectively defeat swarms of drones, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

The Royal Artillery Trials and Development Unit and 7 Air Defence Group “successfully targeted and engaged” uncrewed aerial systems with the “Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon” at a range in West Wales, the MOD said in a press release Monday. “The user experimentation trials completed in recent months have enabled Army air defence personnel to explore and exercise the capability’s potential in different configurations across a variety of range environments, threat types and engagement scenarios.”

The effort comes as many nations, including the United States, are in search of new tools to defeat large numbers of drones without firing expensive missiles at them.

Pentagon officials have highlighted the U.S. military’s defensive operations in the Middle East region against Houthi and Iranian UAS over the past year as indicators of the need for more cost-effective solutions.

Other events in recent weeks have raised concerns about mysterious drones near military bases.

For example, last month, U.S. and U.K. military personnel were actively monitoring installations around and airspace over Royal Air Force Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Feltwell and RAF Fairford for small UAS that were repeatedly spotted near those facilities. Earlier this month, mysterious drones were also sighted in New Jersey over Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle.

In May, the U.K. MOD put out a release noting that a new Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon (RFDEW) was under development.

The demonstrator platform that was recently tested was built by a Thales-led consortium that includes subcontractors such as QinetiQ, Teledyne e2v and Horiba Mira. The industry team was awarded a contract for the technology by the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support organization and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, according to a press release issued Monday.

The system is designed to detect, track and attack a variety of targets and provide the ability to engage them up to 1 kilometer away.

“The weapon uses high frequency waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside devices such as drones, causing them to be immobilised or fall out of the sky,” per the release, which noted that the technology can also be used against threats in other warfighting domains such as land and sea.

The capability only costs 10 pence — or about 13 cents — per shot, according to the MOD.

“Its high level of automation means the system can be operated by a single person and could be mounted onto a military vehicle … to provide mobility,” officials wrote in a release.

In a statement, Maria Eagle MP, minister for defence procurement and industry, said the successful test marked “another step forward for a potentially game-changing sovereign weapon for the UK.”

Officials plan to continue to work with operators to refine these types of technologies and develop requirements and doctrine.

On a company website, Thales referred to its RFDEW by name as RapidDestroyer.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is also reaching out to industry as it looks for new directed energy weapons that can take down enemy drones.

For example, Epirus has been developing a high-power microwave weapon prototype, known as Leonidas Expeditionary, as part of the Defense Department’s Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm (ExDECS) initiative. The Office of Naval Research, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) are also involved in the effort.

Other Leonidas-derived prototypes have been acquired for the Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High-Power Microwave (IFPC-HPM) initiative and the Navy’s Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) demonstrations.

Just last week, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that the Defense Department was deploying Dronebusters and other capabilities to the bases in New Jersey where UAS incursions had recently occurred.

A Dronebuster “essentially emits a signal which is able to interrupt the signal on the drone which can affect its flight. So, that’s a methodology that we have that is able to essentially bring drones down non-kinetically should we need to do that,” Ryder said.