Drone swarms are a new and emerging threat, posing a significant challenge to conventional military defenses.
The use of weaponized drone swarms in Ukraine has raised concerns about the future of warfare. Drone swarms pose serious threat to traditional military defenses and they could also be used to carry out terrorist attacks.
Governments and militaries across the world are investing in countermeasures, such as electronic warfare, directed energy weapons, and kinetic means to neutralize drone swarms.
The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has countered the emerging threat of drone swarms using THOR, a high-power microwave weapon that can take out multiple targets at once.
THOR successfully disabled a swarm of drones in a recent trial.
Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL completed a successful demonstration of THOR simulating a real-world swarm attack.
THOR uses bursts of high-power microwaves to disable small drones, causing them to fall from the sky.
THOR is a portable, easy-to-use system that can be set up in 3 hours and costs $18 million. It can be transported in a 20-foot container and requires minimal user training.
During a demonstration at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Captain Eric Plummer, a test engineer with AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate, successfully used THOR to disable a swarm of multiple targets under realistic conditions.
