Sunday, June 04, 2023

THOR microwave weapon hammers drone swarms in demo test

The arms race is always on! Another human certainty besides death and taxes!

We just learnt from the Russo-Ukrainian War that Ukrainians have quite successfully used shotguns to down low flying drones!

There seems to be a problem: Once the armed drone crashes it could still explode on the ground! If you have e.g. dozens of drones crashing ...

"... when technology has advanced to the point where drones can attack in organized swarms in such numbers as to overwhelm conventional air defenses. ...
There are a number of approaches being explored and one of the more promising is the use of directed energy weapons. One of these is THOR, which uses high-energy microwaves fired in bursts over wide areas to counter in-coming hostile drones. It doesn't do this by blasting the drones like a laser, but by frying the delicate electronics, causing the robotic aircraft to crash. ..."

THOR microwave weapon hammers drone swarms in demo test The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has countered the emerging threat of drone swarms, using the Tactical High-power Operational Responder (THOR) to take out multiple targets.



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