Epirus markets counter-UAS tech to Military
By DRONELIFE Options Editor Jim Magill
A cellular weapons system, able to touring autonomously to the battlefield and capturing down swarms of hostile drones utilizing beams of microwave vitality may look like the stuff of science fiction, nevertheless it may very well be exhibiting up quickly in conflict zones internationally.
Los Angeles-based protection know-how firm Epirus and a subsidiary of worldwide protection contractor Basic Dynamics not too long ago teamed to create the Leonidas Autonomous Robotic automobile (Leonidas AR), a cellular counter-UAS system. The brand new weapon integrates Epirus’s Leonidas’s high-power microwave (HPM) counter-drone platform with Basic Dynamics Land Methods’ Tracked Robotic 10-ton (TRX) unmanned floor automobile, to counter the rising menace posed by swarms of hostile drones.
“Epirus’s partnership with Basic Dynamics Land Methods 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 most recent iteration of Leonidas, Epirus’s flagship counter UAS platform, which at a current 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.
“It is 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 combat.”
In an emailed assertion, Epirus described Leonidas as “a solid-state, software-defined, scalable, modular and secure 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, corresponding to missile techniques.
“Whereas a lot of the world is simply now coming to phrases with the truth 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 accomplice of funding agency 8VC and co-founder of Palantir, Grant Verstandig, chairman and CEO of Crimson 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 shaped to fulfill 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 vital urgent nationwide and homeland safety threats of the trendy period.”
Lately, drone warfare has turn into essentially the most dominant and pervasive menace going through navy and civilian goal internationally, as demonstrated by Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Net and Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, the corporate mentioned.
Epirus mentioned it established itself as firm to fulfill the increasing threats to freedom pushed by the fast developments in applied sciences corresponding to 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 private-capital fund, Epirus was capable of ship its Leonidas system to the U.S. Military in file time. The corporate first demonstrated the effectiveness of Leonidas in 2020 and since then has continued to improve the system. In July Epirus launched Technology II of its Leonidas HPM platform, marked by vital will increase in energy and vary in the identical kind issue as Technology I. So far, Epirus has delivered 4 Built-in Fireplace Safety Functionality HPM (IFPC-HPM) techniques to the Military.
in January 2023 the Military’s Speedy Capabilities and Important Applied sciences Workplace (RCCTO) awarded Epirus a $66M contract for 4 IFPC-HPM techniques in January 2023. The corporate delivered the primary system in November 2023 and all 4 techniques in Could 2024. In a assertion the Military confirmed that the Epirus techniques marked the primary deployment of the kind of counter-UAS know-how. “IFPC-HPM is the primary material-released directed vitality weapon system particularly designed to counter teams and swarms of drones.” the Military mentioned. In July, the Military bought two extra Leonidas techniques and the corporate mentioned it’s on monitor to ship these techniques quickly.
The Leonidas’ use of HPM know-how offers the system a “one-to-many,” defeat functionality that different counter-UAS techniques, which depend on kinetic or radio jamming strategies to convey down hostile drones, lack. “Conventional one-to-one counter-UAS options like kinetics (i.e. missiles) and high-energy laser techniques are usually not ample for saturation assaults as a consequence of journal depth and value constraints,” the corporate assertion mentioned. “Kinetic techniques are depletable, logistically intensive and unsustainable when confronted with a swarm.”
As well as, though laser-based counter-UAS techniques supply unimaginable precision they “demand excellent circumstances—clear skies, uninterrupted line of sight and sustained monitoring. They’re pricey, troublesome to take care of and hamstrung by vital upkeep and energy burdens.”
Likewise, using conventional digital warfare strategies corresponding to jamming a drone’s communication hyperlink require a radio frequency (RF) signature to be efficient. “With fiber-optic guided drones which have taken heart stage in Ukraine, jamming is rendered ineffective as a result of there isn’t 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 convey 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 masking 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, corresponding to synthetic intelligence, robots and drones, and the methods during 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 Methods, a publication of the Affiliation for Unmanned Automobile Methods Worldwide.
