Epirus markets counter-UAS tech to Military
By DRONELIFE Options Editor Jim Magill
A cell weapons system, able to touring autonomously to the battlefield and taking pictures down swarms of hostile drones utilizing beams of microwave power would possibly seem to be the stuff of science fiction, however it might be exhibiting up quickly in battle zones internationally.
Los Angeles-based protection know-how firm Epirus and a subsidiary of worldwide protection contractor Common Dynamics lately teamed to create the Leonidas Autonomous Robotic automobile (Leonidas AR), a cell counter-UAS system. The brand new weapon integrates Epirus’s Leonidas’s high-power microwave (HPM) counter-drone platform with Common Dynamics Land Programs’ Tracked Robotic 10-ton (TRX) unmanned floor automobile, to counter the rising menace posed by swarms of hostile drones.
“Epirus’s partnership with Common Dynamics Land Programs is an industry-leading collaboration that continues to ship actual outcomes. Collectively, we’re bringing world-first capabilities to market that immediately reply the decision of the Military Transformation Initiative,” Epirus CEO Andy Lowery, mentioned in a press launch.
The Leonidas AR is simply the newest iteration of Leonidas, Epirus’s flagship counter UAS platform, which at a latest Division of Protection demonstration, achieved a 100% success price, downing a complete of 61 out of the 61 drones it was examined in opposition to, together with a “killing” each UAV arrayed in 49-drone swarm with one burst of electromagnetic interference.
“This can be a watershed second for Epirus,” Lowery mentioned in an announcement after the demonstration at Camp Atterbury, Indiana final month. “We consider showcasing our weaponized electromagnetic interference is the best solution to talk that Leonidas is the one mission-capable, counter-swarm resolution for the one-to-many battle.”
In an emailed assertion, Epirus described Leonidas as “a solid-state, software-defined, scalable, modular and protected high-power microwave platform that delivers a weaponized electromagnetic interference functionality to counter swarms of drones throughout domains.” The system makes use of high-powered microwave know-how to shoot drones out of the sky, with out the attendant prices and security hazards or kinetic counter-UAS applied sciences, reminiscent of missile methods.
“Whereas a lot of the world is simply now coming to phrases with the fact of the drone swarm menace, Epirus noticed this coming years in the past—that’s what led to the corporate’s founding in 2018,” the corporate assertion mentioned.
Epirus was based by Joe Lonsdale, managing companion of funding agency 8VC and co-founder of Palantir, Grant Verstandig, chairman and CEO of Purple Cell Companions and others. CEO Lowery brings a long time of management on the intersection of nationwide safety and know-how to Epirus. Previous to becoming a member of Epirus, he led a number of protection know-how startups together with Daqri and RealWear and was beforehand chief enterprise space engineer at Raytheon.
Firm fashioned to satisfy rising technologic threats
Epirus’s company mission “is to beat the uneven challenges inherent to the way forward for nationwide safety. Uneven, saturation assaults from robotic, growingly autonomous swarms of drones are one of the urgent nationwide and homeland safety threats of the fashionable period.”
Lately, drone warfare has turn out to be probably the most dominant and pervasive menace going through navy and civilian goal internationally, as demonstrated by Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Internet and Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, the corporate mentioned.
Epirus mentioned it established itself as firm to satisfy the increasing threats to freedom pushed by the fast developments in applied sciences reminiscent of synthetic intelligence and robotics. Its company tradition “blends the fast product improvement and disruptive innovation of Silicon Valley with the {industry} know-how, scale and sustainment” of the world’s main protection contractors.
Financed by means of private-capital fund, Epirus was in a position to ship its Leonidas system to the U.S. Military in report time. The corporate first demonstrated the effectiveness of Leonidas in 2020 and since then has continued to improve the system. In July Epirus launched Era II of its Leonidas HPM platform, marked by important will increase in energy and vary in the identical kind issue as Era I. Thus far, Epirus has delivered 4 Built-in Fireplace Safety Functionality HPM (IFPC-HPM) methods to the Military.
in January 2023 the Military’s Speedy Capabilities and Essential Applied sciences Workplace (RCCTO) awarded Epirus a $66M contract for 4 IFPC-HPM methods in January 2023. The corporate delivered the primary system in November 2023 and all 4 methods in Could 2024. In a assertion the Military confirmed that the Epirus methods marked the primary deployment of the kind of counter-UAS know-how. “IFPC-HPM is the primary material-released directed power weapon system particularly designed to counter teams and swarms of drones.” the Military mentioned. In July, the Military bought two extra Leonidas methods and the corporate mentioned it’s on monitor to ship these methods quickly.
The Leonidas’ use of HPM know-how offers the system a “one-to-many,” defeat functionality that different counter-UAS methods, which depend on kinetic or radio jamming strategies to carry down hostile drones, lack. “Conventional one-to-one counter-UAS options like kinetics (i.e. missiles) and high-energy laser methods aren’t adequate for saturation assaults as a consequence of journal depth and price constraints,” the corporate assertion mentioned. “Kinetic methods are depletable, logistically intensive and unsustainable when confronted with a swarm.”
As well as, though laser-based counter-UAS methods provide unimaginable precision they “demand good circumstances—clear skies, uninterrupted line of sight and sustained monitoring. They’re pricey, tough to take care of and hamstrung by important upkeep and energy burdens.”
Likewise, using conventional digital warfare strategies reminiscent of jamming a drone’s communication hyperlink require a radio frequency (RF) signature to be efficient. “With fiber-optic guided drones which have taken middle stage in Ukraine, jamming is rendered ineffective as a result of there is no such thing as a RF signature and no communication hyperlink to jam,” Epirus mentioned.
In distinction, the Leonidas HPM know-how platform doesn’t require an RF signature to carry down hostile drones. Its weaponized electromagnetic interference overloads the important electronics of a goal drone, leading to system failure and a sure crash touchdown.
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Jim Magill is a Houston-based author with virtually a quarter-century of expertise protecting technical and financial developments within the oil and fuel {industry}. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P World Platts, Jim started writing about rising applied sciences, reminiscent of synthetic intelligence, robots and drones, and the methods through which they’re contributing to our society. Along with DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared within the Houston Chronicle, U.S. Information & World Report, and Unmanned Programs, a publication of the Affiliation for Unmanned Automobile Programs Worldwide.
