Meet Raytheon’s Drone-Destroying Microwave-Energy Weapon

here is no shortage of innovative ways to shoot down drones. Some companies are pitching lasers, others prefer radio-frequency disruption or, if you prefer explosions, the U.S. Army has tested Raytheon AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and fired course-corrected projectiles with forward-blast fragmentation warheads from a 50-mm Bushmaster cannon. But could a whole swarm be destroyed electronically with a 1-millisec. zap?

The answer may lie with the Phaser system, designed and developed by Raytheon’s Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Ktech group, the same team that worked with Boeing to produce the “CHAMP” counter-electronics cruise missile for the Air Force.

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