Jane Edwards
William Lynn, chairman and CEO of Leonardo DRS, said the company is working to advance directed energy, electronic warfare and other capabilities to counter drone swarms, Defense News reported Tuesday.
“With single drones, you can deal with them kinetically [and] shoot them down one at a time. With swarming drones, you could have too many to really do that. And so you’re going to want to look at solutions that are not kinetic, like electronic warfare, jamming, directed energy,” Lynn told the publication in an interview.
“There’s some of that right now in the current generation, but you’re going to want to expand those capabilities to deal with a swarming drone threat,” he added.
Lynn said the company is in the testing phase for its one-vehicle, counter-drone platform, dubbed Mobile Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Integrated Defense System, and is exploring possible upgrades to MLIDS to deal with drone swarms.
When asked about the challenge of adapting capabilities to take out swarming drones, he cited the need to meet the power requirements for directed energy.
“It takes a lot of power, and so you need to develop more efficient ways of producing that power such that you can do it in a package that you can put on a vehicle, rather than use it just in a fixed site,” Lynn added.
He also offered updates on the company’s sensor integration work and planned merger with Israel-based RADA Electronic Industries.
