AUSA 2022: Team displaying Stryker with high-power microwave for C-UAS mission

The Stryker Leonidas technology demonstrator. Epirus and GDLS tested this high-power microwave capability against swarms of aerial drones. (GDLS)

Epirus and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) are unveiling a Stryker combat vehicle outfitted with the Leonidas high-power microwave (HPM) system at this year's Association of the US Army (AUSA) conference.

Scott Taylor, GDLS's director of US business development, spoke with Janes about the Stryker Leonidas technology demonstrator on 29 September ahead of the annual conference in Washington, DC, from 10 to 12 October.

The idea, in part, is to show military officials a potential pathway for integrating the Leonidas HPM onto a single, existing platform to down smaller drones and provide soldiers on the move with a counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) capability against drone swarms.

“It's amazing what our adversaries are developing, a small amount of munition on a small drone in large quantities that can rapidly overwhelm the capabilities of protected systems that we already have,” Taylor said.

The duo spent the past year integrating the Leonidas HPM onto the back of a Stryker with a flat-bottom hull and included onboard and networked target acquisition capabilities, according to a picture of the vehicle and a GDLS statement.

“We're showing that the SWaP [size, weight, and power] of a Stryker is eminently capable to be able to handle this [and] to provide protection for a manoeuvre formation,” Taylor said.

“I think the conflicts in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh are demonstrating an emergent threat and [show a] risk to our formations,” he added.

After the vehicle was assembled, they sent it to the Nevada National Security Site to test it out against individual drones and swarms of aerial vehicles.