Epirus Wins $11 Million Navy Contract for Vehicle-mounted Drone-killing Microwave Weapon

The contract, awarded through the Office of Naval Research, will result in the delivery early next year of a High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability (HAVOC) system that can autonomously identify drone targets to be dropped from the sky with an electromagnetic pulse. The award follows prototype testing of the similar Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm (ExDECS) weapon prototype that Epirus delivered to the Corps for testing last year under a $5.5 million contract. Compared with ExDECS, the HAVOC system will have three times the power, improved ruggedness and range and autonomous capabilities intended to simplify decision-making for human operators, the company said.

We’ve tripled the power density nearly in this system. So think of it, from a laser point of view that a lot of people are familiar with, like going from a 50-kilowatt to 150-kilowatt type laser in the same size package. So that directly kind of contributes to lethality, range, these types of things, Epirus CEO Andy Lowery told Defense News in an interview.