SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Small-Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) operated by enemy actors present an immediate threat to forward Air Force (AF) installments, potentially leading to flight interruptions, enemy gathering of real-time intelligence, and payload delivery of weapons. The AF needs proliferated and attritable systems to protect against this emerging threat. The technology development under this SBIR topic will immediately support this need with the capability to produce a low-cost, UAV-portable high-power microwave (HPM) weapon. PSI’s goal is to integrate our previously developed Portable High-Power Microwave Disabler (PHPMD) onto an octocopter drone platform to create a counter-electronic weapon capable of incremental HPM effects (i.e. high-power jamming, power-down, permanent-shutdown) against COTS quadcopters. During Phase I, HPM effects testing will be performed with manual control over the attacking drone in an anechoic chamber, generating a marketing demonstration and raising the system to TRL 6. Phase II would see the development of a target detection, tracking and pointing system on the host vehicle, with a gimbal mounted demonstration, raising the system to TRL 8. The mission impact of this project on the AF and the DoD is a new capability to quickly and cheaply deploy C-UAS systems at forward Air Bases to defend the warfighter against sUAS threat.
