Posted on 12/19/2024 6:06:47 PM PST by Gideon7
YouTube video. The relevant part is 5:18-9:56.
Transcript:
The Leonidas system has shown up in a moment when the Department of Defense was recognizing a critical need and as promised the technology they provided was proven capable just in time to address the problem America barely knew it had...
It uses a directed energy weapon rather than an interceptor system to take out incoming threats, but rather than being a point and shoot offensive weapon, Leonidas is meant to provide defensive area coverage creating less a contiguous force field in the surrounding area and more an area of denial where no unfriendly drone system can operate. The core of the Leonidas system is its use of high power microwave energy fired in beams that create an electromagnetic pulse or EMP. EMPs are nothing new in Modern Warfare and their effects are well known, primarily their ability to disable electronic systems, but rather than say the natural EMPs that come from lightning strikes or the uncontrolled EMPs that result from the detonation of nuclear weapons, the EMPs that come from the Leonidas system are able to be channeled precisely, cutting in a wide beam they can fry anything in their path -- neutralizing, say, an oncoming drone swarm all at once, or they can focus on precise individual targets sniping drones out of the sky one by one as soon as they violate the perimeter.
That is a massive improvement over any laser based system which would offer only the capability to fire against a single target at a time using specialized transistors rather than traditional magnetrons to generate its microwave beam.
Leonidas is considered more compact than would otherwise be expected for a weapon of this kind, and at a relatively low cost of energy expenditure, it can focus a beam for a relatively long duration of time or fire off shots in rapid succession, relying on a digitally beamformed antenna. That beam is kept tight and highly precise such that it's unlikely that nearby friendly drones will be impacted when the beam is targeted against a single foe.
Leonidas can fire very rapidly without overheating, and its effect on a target is near instantaneous, rather than needing to train the beam on the target for any length of time.
It doesn't require reloading, and its voltage is low enough that humans nearby aren't in danger from its emissions.It's efficient it's easily transported, and by all indications it's highly effective against the consumer grade drone technology that the US military is so worried about. Any drone of that sort that comes into Leonidas's protective bubble will be fried regardless of the specific internal electronics that it features.
The positives to the Leonidas system go well beyond just that initially envisioned. As a towed trailer Leonidas now has been added to the Striker, an eight-wheel Armored Fighting Vehicle that's been in America's military employ since 2002. The Striker is well armored, it's armed for its own defense, and it can drive under its own power at speeds of up to 60 MPH (nearly 100 km per hour) while requiring minimal crew to operate the software.
Leonidus offers a range of benefits, but most important of all it's able to distinguish between friend and foe. That means that rather than simply creating an indiscriminant anti-drone force field, it creates a safe zone for friendly drones to operate while adversary devices have little hope of survival. Not only that but the friend-or-foe system could be programmed to fit a given situation, enforcing, say, a no fly zone, or ignoring adversaries outside of a certain critical zone.
The system has been adapted into an aerial attachment pod, giving it the ability to be fitted onto a heavy lift drone of its own and defend in midair.
It's also in the process of being miniaturized, and can at this stage be crammed into the back of a pickup truck without too much trouble. The technology is ruggedized, meaning that it can take a beating and continue to function, while the Leonidas Pod is adapted to integrate with all manner of existing UAVs and could probably be grafted onto manned aircraft as well, and because Leonidas targets the electronic systems of a drone directly rather than simply cutting it off from radio operators it's just as successful in stopping fully autonomous drones that don't require active operator control in order to function.
Finally, Leonidus has shown that it can be useful against not only aerial drones but sea drones and at the time of writing tests have already demonstrated that it can disable a sea vessel's outboard motor in addition to basically any other sort of electronics that an operator could point it at.
Perhaps most important out of any of its design elements is the focus on keeping the Leonidas system modular and easily adaptable. This is a feature of many modern US military technologies.
Interesting
...No Radar system is 100%, they’ll be lucky to detect and target 40% of the incoming.
...and that assumes alert and well trained operators
“It is interesting that the US military now has (or will soon have) the capability to take drones down precisely and en masse.”
Providing that China sell them the piece-parts that they need in sufficient quantity.
“...No Radar system is 100%, they’ll be lucky to detect and target 40% of the incoming.”
And if one drone gets through, or an artillery shell...
Based on the description, it sounds like it can run pretty much automatically to protect a perimeter.
The transcript reads like an advertisement.
I’d love to see an actual test which measured its limitations.
Of course, such information would be classified.
BTTT
Does anyone remember Age of Empires computer game that came out in 1997? You started out in stone age and advanced to future stage. The future stage had drones and equipment that shot lasers. Looks like we’re almost there.
And that pesky civilian aircraft in the background.
It looks like an AESA radar made into a weapon by greatly increased output power. This has been under development for decades as a defensive system for high value targets like aircraft and ships.
It’s a DBF (digitial beam formed) high power microwave radar system, essentially. It bandies the words EMP about like it’s true EMP but is not.
True EMP requires an extremely wideband antenna (and therefore less directive), and in this case to target a single drone or sector of drones the DBF cannot be ‘wideband in the sense of an EMP’.
You generally can get 5-10% bandwidth on something like a phased array, maybe a little more with a DBF when using dipole like individual elements for the digital beam forming off the array elements.
So why the ‘EMP’ claim? What this system likely does is use high power DBF to directively hit a drone or drone sector with high power MW to either saturate the front ends of the drone receiver, or hopefully burn out drone receiver/control parts.
In listening to the Youtube talker, it’s a DBF system that uses newer solid state elements (he says ‘transistors’) that can handle more power. So what it likely is would be an AESA array with transmitter and receiver elements right at the antenna element level that quickly get up/down converted to digital baseband so the computer can play its DBF tricks. Good thing if you can do it but this isn’t an EMP in the classical sense.
What if the drone comes at it at three feet off the ground?
The big AESAs can do that, too.
One problem here is that the very beams this puppy emits can be used to target it.
Nonetheless, the tech for the sorts of battles envisioned on Babylon 5 is not that far off.
Bfl
You’re probably thinking of a similar game, as Age of Empires never got to future stage. I remember one did back then, but I don’t remember the details.
Interestingly enough, AoE is more popular than ever. My 16 year old and his friends are huge into it...and they keep upgrading it.
The essential point is that instead of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) that radiates widely and indiscriminately, the new device used an EMP that is electronically focused and targeted to disrupt or destroy the radio links and circuitry of only specific hostile drones.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.