Non-Kinetic Counter-UAS with High Power Microwave: Technology, Actors and European Strategic Autonomy
The accelerating proliferation of unmanned aerial systems, from inexpensive quadcopters to increasingly coordinated autonomous swarms, has reshaped the economics and the operational demands of air defence. Conflicts in multiple theatres have demonstrated how saturation attacks by large numbers of low-cost drones can overwhelm traditional kinetic interceptors, creating an unsustainable disparity between the price of the threat and the price required to neutralise it. As defenders confront thousands of UAS sorties within compressed time horizons, the limitations of one-to-one, magazine-dependent systems become more acute, prompting a shift toward solutions that can address both volume and cost asymmetry. Non-kinetic countermeasures, particularly high-power microwave systems, have emerged as a critical response to this challenge by enabling one-to-many engagements that physically disable drone electronics regardless of control method or autonomy level. Their potential lies not only in near-instantaneous effects but in the ability to alter the cost structure of defence, making sustained protection feasible where kinetic systems alone cannot scale. This report examines the operational, technical and industrial implications of this shift, tracing how HPM-based C-UAS capabilities fit into layered defence architectures and how they may influence future force protection strategies.
The report provides a detailed, system-level examination of high-power microwave counter-UAS technologies, describing the physics of drone vulnerability, the engineering of pulsed-power architectures, and the design trade-offs that shape emitter performance, beam control and tactical employment. It documents the industrial landscape across allied nations, with particular attention to European and non-prime suppliers, mapping subsystem providers, pulsed-power manufacturers, microwave-source developers, antenna specialists and full-system integrators. The analysis extends to technology readiness, miniaturisation limits and SWaP-C constraints, assessing how these factors influence deployment timelines and procurement feasibility. A full set of comparative tables accompanies the narrative, providing structured mappings of the industrial ecosystem, technology architectures, economic and financial considerations, supply-chain vulnerabilities and the strategic roadmap for 2024–2030. Together, these elements offer the reader a coherent analytical framework that links technical realities to capability development, industrial capacity and strategic choices, enabling informed assessment of both near-term potential and long-term implications for European defence autonomy.
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