U.S. Air Force Unveils Drone-Killing Microwave Weapon | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Air Force Unveils Drone-Killing Microwave Weapon

taskandpurpose.com

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> "Those tests, however, showed some limitations when integrating Raytheon's system with other military technologies and battlefield tactics and protocols, Hammett said. Raytheon has since invested more resources to further develop its system, which could still be deployed in the future by the military. "

Is this an indirect way of saying, "It'll disable our stuff too."?

There was some internet lore about patriot missiles being ‘tricked’ via consumer microwave ovens, with the doors opened, bypass switch activated, and powered w/ extension cords in the middle of a field.

What makes this a specifically anti drone technology? Surely the electronic warfare community has been able to do directed EM pulses for long time, what stops it from being a generalized anti aircraft tool?

Range, I guess

There were a few vaporware corps that proposed ionizing atmosphere with an ultraviolet laser and then sending high voltage RF down that channel. It was supposed to be against cars but I imagine non-rad-hard electronics would find some induced currents troublesome.

That's where aluminum 'chemtrails' come into play, to create HE radio channels. https://geopolitics.co/2015/04/03/chemtrail-pilot-blows-the-...

Laser induced plasma channel and then zzzt zzzzt lightning ;)

Agreed. Seems like a lot easier way to kill a missile than using another missile.

It's easy to defend against.

Put all your electronics in a copper box, and all in/out wires through optoisolators, and you've made your missile EM-proof.

Anti-drone guns exist. What is the difference? https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2079045/chin...

Huge difference in power level, your link is to an RF jammer which would not work with drones using inertial or optical navigation, which is very practical for the short distance a drone needs to travel in sight of the target.

The original article shows what looks like a much more powerful system, that would induce high enough voltages/currents in the drone electronics to cause permanent damage, the same as if you put one in a microwave oven, they are really not comparable.

An interesting question would be how fast the original dish can turn, a slow traversal would very much limit its effectiveness.

Can anyone actually confirm this weapon? How many shots does it get? 1? Is there tracking? How wide is the beam? Range?

Honestly I'm pretty skeptical of this. That thing looks heavy, but providing a lot of high energy microwaves requires a lot of power. I mean a lot of microwave ovens are 1kW. I imagine that you'd really need to be a crack shot too, since drones are pretty zippy.

I’ve put my toy drone in the microwave and can confirm that this technique works

This is off topic but if you put food in a small microwave then put the small microwave in a bigger microwave does the food cook faster?

> if you put food in a small microwave then put the small microwave in a bigger microwave does the food cook faster?

No. The microwaves stay in the smaller microwave oven because it is a microwave-tight box. If you put that small microwave oven in a bigger microwave oven the bigger one will likely fry many of the component of the smaller one but the food inside the inner microwave oven is unlikely to be affected because the outer microwaves are unable to penetrate the inner microwave-tight box.

I would guess not since a microwave oven is meant to be shielded?

If implemented correctly, you’d have 2 generators cooking the food.

I wonder how practical this actually is... There is of course almost no technical details provided but based on the dish this likely doesn't have more than a 30 degree beam width (and likely a smaller effective beam width).

It's impossible to tell from this video but the drone may need to stay in the beam for a certain amount of time before it gets taken out. I'm guessing this is more of a "we're heating the electronics beyond their operational capacity" than "we're inducing surges in the traces and overloading circuitry" kind of killing.

The video in that story shows it moving and it's not fast... Even a $50 toy drone can really cruise. So I'd question it's ability to track a moving target much less take out a swarm of them.

> I'm guessing this is more of a "we're heating the electronics beyond their operational capacity" than "we're inducing surges in the traces and overloading circuitry" kind of killing.

I suspect it's the opposite: very high-power but short duration microwave pulses that will induce sufficiently high voltages to blow insulation somewhere important in the target device. I don't know enough about antenna/dish design to estimate what frequency band it operates in and the $15M price tag is low enough to rule out some of the really advanced microwave sources, but we could still potentially be looking at multi-MW pulses.

There was a demo some years ago about blue-screening a windows box via parts from a microwave oven at a decent distance.

I vaguely remember it being a Russian dude that also was making hydrochloric acid?

You may be referring to Kreosan?

When you put electronics in microwaves sparks seem to come off fairly strait away - here are some guys doing a phone https://youtu.be/7aceV8URLjc?t=4

I'm not quite sure how the physics work but its not just heating

It's essentially a targeted EMP[1]. Other similar systems using targeted microwaves to fry electronics have been developed[2] but this one seems to be relatively low tech in comparison due to much looser constraints on size.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Non-nucl...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-electronics_High_Power...

You probably don't want anything nearly as wide as 30 degrees if you're shooting around with a HERF gun linked to targeting radar in a population area, even if you ignore factors of beam density or spread. A highly focused beam that's able to follow a target puts a lot more power on the target than a simple directional antenna with 30 degree spread.

I suspect that anything more than a couple degrees of spread would be considered undesirable for this kind of use.

I was being extremely generous given the rotational speed these things were demonstrated with. If it has a significantly narrower beam it absolutely won't be able to track a single moving drone much less deal with it's intended target of a "swarm of drones".

The US has guns that successfully track missiles and mortar rounds, any drone meant for extended flight won't be faster than either of those.

However, hardening against microwaves costs less than the defensive tracking system, so it's probably better to keep shooting bullets.

I’d think the beam width is much narrower, as it’s probably operating at X-band or higher. Given it’s a solid reflector, as opposed to mesh, and using a sub-reflector (which would be several wavelengths in diameter).

One bullet from one drone, and the thing is a puff. It's more expensive to build than a drone? Why does this make sense?

The bullet has to connect with the drone, they can move very fast in a number of directions.

One bullet may not be enough unless it hit the flight computer.

When the navy shoots bullets at a incoming projectile, they pretty much create a wall of lead (Phalanx).

Even if you could shoot one bullet, one bullet could go through it and into the window of a high rise office building.

I believe the parent may be suggesting that one drone could take out the microwave weapon at a considerable cost imbalance between the two.

The answer to why it makes sense in that case, is that there are so few other viable alternatives to deal with swarms of drones (none currently).

> The answer to why it makes sense in that case, is that there are so few other viable alternatives to deal with swarms of drones (none currently).

There are - if the AF was functional. Any viable alternative has to have the same form - low price, and distributed - from none of the Military contractors.

Firing shots off in the air introduce a lot more variables then blasting them with microwaves.

Bullets are cheap, but I don't see that solution working in urban environments.

Eventually we will see an air superiority war play out with drones the same way it did with fighter jets, although the drones are going to do far more insane maneuvers. The "Top Gun" dogfight scene for this era will be amazing.

I'm imagining massive fleets of coordinating drones fighting it out. More like a naval battle than a dog fight.

I suspect it'll actually become a war of attrition, won by whoever has the most industrial capacity on the ground to make more drones and supply their logistics.

Battles between adversaries of wildly different technological levels usually come down to whoever has the better technology. Battles between equal technological levels come down to whoever has better resources. Drone swarm vs. pilot isn't looking good for the pilots, but drone swarm vs. other drone swarm will probably go to whoever has the bigger drone swarm.

So China will always win by disallowing DJI exports.

This system can be of good help in Gatwick like situations [1].

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-sussex-46564814/p...

My first thought as well. Though given strict safety requirements at airports I'm not sure how collateral damage from firing a microwave cannon around could be avoided.

No mention of power output anywhere I can find, so I guess that's classified?

It must be stupid high if they don't think "Oh, I guess we have to shield our electronics now..." is going to be a valid countermeasure.

Shielding would also add weight to the drone, which would limit their range and capabilities.

A swarm of advancing drones could collectively take evasive maneuvers to increase their probability of success. As individual drones drop out of the sky the remaining drones could reposition themselves, much like a split frame in bowling, making it harder for one of these devices to rotate back and forth and hit all of them.

Shielding costs money and will not be implemented on consumer drones. That means the cheapest/simplest options for would-be bad guys can be stopped by it. Also, if you shield a GPS antenna your simplest means of navigation won't work.

unless the shield IS the antenna

Help me understand how this makes sense, the antenna on most modern radios is directly connected to a front end amplifier, usually an extremely sensitive MOSFET circuit. The reason a Gaussian surface can block EMP from a circuit is because there’s no conductive pathway into the part you don’t want an EMP. When the shield is the antenna then the only part that can be hit by the EMP is one of the most fragile and sensitive ones.

I guess the idea is that once the drone reaches the enemy you can use an IMU for station keeping and expect GPS to get destroyed?

I suspect that the drone depends on exposed antennas to navigate and communicate. So it can't be entirely shielded.

> Tactical High Power Microwave Operational Responder (THOR)

Oh come on...

I think it's safe to say a gift for wordplay is not high on the priority list of armed forces recruitment.

So why bother at all? Just give it some different name altogether.

There's a weird little history of the military trying to learn from mass culture. Somewhere I read a good story about a general coming to tour the Star Trek next gen bridge set. But this time it seems more like their inspiration is the Marvel Cinematic Universe…

Missed the Tactical High-power Microwave Operational Responder (THMPOR), opportunity, which would result in being lovingly christened "thumper" by your EWAR guys.

   Tactical High power microwave Operational Responder (THOR)

FTFY

It doesn't fix anything ;)

I guess THPMOR didn't quite roll off the tongue, but dropping the PM makes no sense whatsoever.

I wonder if this will become standard equipment at the airports.

Probably not. There'd be too much risk to planes.

No mention of range, seems pretty easy for drones just to use altitude. The drones could come in at 10,000 feet and drop whatever they came to deliver.

The type of drones this is talking about don't fly at 10,000 feet. There's a big difference between a predator and a DJI phantom with an IED strapped to it. That is really what this is meant to stop.

Url changed from https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18701267/us-air-force-tho..., which points to, and quotes from, this.

What would happen if you wrapped the drone in tinfoil (leave only the blades out), or a metal sheet with holes like microwave doors?

For consumer drones, you wouldn't be able to communicate with the drone to control it or transmit any video or other data from it. Also, GPS or any other type of GNSS navigation wouldn't function.

What if you could communicate via optical laser between two drones that could relay information across the swarm? Especially when flying in a formation.

Microwave doors are really leaky, as far as it goes- people have even made projects that harvest the energy leaked by them! [1]

{1} https://hackaday.io/project/159319-mwessenger {1} https://hackaday.com/2018/07/15/harvesting-power-from-microw...

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