Russia Builds Microwave Weapon To Take Down Enemy Drones (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Russian government is backing a military research project to develop a powerful microwave-based weapon designed to take out unmanned enemy drones from up to half a mile away. The country's United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (UIMC) created the microwave gun specifically to disrupt the electronics of enemy missiles. Using the ultra-high frequency waves the weapon can completely disable aircraft communications, resulting in loss of control. The destructive rays, which belong to a group of warfare technologies known as directed-energy weapons (DEW), will be emitted from surface-to-air Buk missile systems. Military analyst Alexander Perendzhiyev noted that the new weapon would be particularly effective against systems carrying microelectronic equipment. He also suggested that the impact of the radio-electronic waves could even be deadly to humans -- and referred to potential use against terrorists.

Comments

Re:Syrian drones

[Anonymous Coward]

riiiight, or you know they could be getting their consumer drones (that's what they are using, not military) from the same source as their Toyota trucks. Ordered direct from the manufacturer or some middle man.

Re:I don't get it

[mysidia]

GPS and Radar are both types of communications. If your drone relies on only GPS and/or Radar for navigation, then sending an EMP down your antenna will destroy your GPS radio, your Radar transceiver, and your drone won't be able to find the current position, let-alone navigate to takeoff location.

Also, microwave won't just take out radio receivers and transmitters..... it will also blow out at least any integrated circuits attached to electromagnetic sensors without extreme protections including completely separate circuits and optical isolation (So you blow up the opto-isolators instead), even if the electronics themselves are shielded.

Sensors such as distance/location measurement by definition cannot be shielded, since you need them unshielded to be able to reach the outside world and sense things.