From Singapore: Defence technology is undergoing a fundamental shift in the Indo-Pacific. Two US defence firms have teamed up to create the Leonidas AR, a mobile counter-UAS platform that pairs a microwave weapon with a robotic tracked vehicle capable of taking out entire drone swarms in seconds. The system represents a departure from kinetic air defence and signals how military forces globally are moving toward directed energy as the answer to overwhelming drone attacks.
The platform integrates Epirus' Leonidas high-power microwave weapon with General Dynamics Land Systems' Tracked Robot 10-ton unmanned ground vehicle, resulting in a mobile, autonomous counter-drone system that can defeat swarms of unmanned aircraft with precision and minimal collateral damage. A full-scale Leonidas AGV prototype was on display at the AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
The economics driving this innovation are stark. The employment of lethal drones costing a few hundred dollars each is threatening the ability of forces to accomplish missions without suffering unacceptable casualties and equipment losses. Conventional defences cannot neutralise drone swarms fast enough, and defensive systems that use interceptors or projectiles are not only too slow; their shots can cost more than the drones they aim to defeat. HPM systems have effectively endless magazines, limited only by an energy source; the cost per engagement becomes trivial, just a few cents.
Field performance has been exceptional. At a recent Department of Defense demonstration, the Leonidas platform achieved a 100% success rate, downing a total of 61 out of 61 drones tested, including every UAV in a 49-drone swarm with one burst of electromagnetic interference. The system fires electromagnetic pulse beams to disable electronics and can pick individual targets or cover a large area in wide beam mode to affect any electronic device that passes through.
The technology's advantages over competing directed energy systems are material. As a directed EMP, the system has advantages over lasers because an HPM can focus on a large area and works against autonomous UAVs with no link back to an operator that radio jamming would be ineffective against. Because it is software-based, it is able to discriminate between enemy and friendly aircraft.
For Australia and Allied powers across the region, the implications are immediate. The rapid proliferation of drones in the Indo-Pacific region has changed the nature of hybrid threats. Small, cheap and widely available drones have collapsed the cost barrier to airpower, meaning that even smaller nations or nonstate actors can now field technologies that were once the domain of advanced militaries. Canberra is moving in parallel: Slinger is a core building block in a national, sovereign counter-drone ecosystem designed to protect Australian troops and bases at home and, if required, project a credible counter-UAS shield into coalition operations across the Indo-Pacific.
Directed energy systems are approaching the maturity required for wider deployment, and the US Department of Defence is accelerating the deployment of directed energy weapons with a goal of fielding operational capabilities within 36 months, focusing on scalable, cost-effective air defences capable of handling dense attacks by unmanned aerial systems. The Leonidas AR represents that transition from prototype to operational system. For defence planners across the region, it is a clear signal about where the strategic competition is heading: toward autonomous, rapidly deployable directed energy platforms that can operate continuously at minimal cost.