Britain reveals new ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ weapon to knock drones out of the sky | UK | News | EUROtoday

Britain’s armed forces will quickly have their palms on a cutting-edge new weapon which makes use of radio waves to blast drones out of the sky.

The Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon (RFDEW) beams radio waves to disrupt or injury the important digital parts of automobiles and drones utilized by enemy combatants, which may trigger them to cease of their tracks or fall out of the sky.

It can be utilized throughout land, air and sea and has a spread of as much as 1km, which may very well be prolonged sooner or later.

Release of details about the brand new weapon comes after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to hike UK defence spending to 2.5% of gross home product (GDP) by 2030.

With an estimated value of 10p per radio wave shot, the expertise can also be being billed as a cheap various to conventional missiles, and may very well be used to take down harmful drone swarms.

At a uncommon briefing with journalists final month, scientists on the high-security Porton Down analysis laboratories in contrast the expertise to that used within the movie Ocean’s Eleven, which sees con artists use a tool referred to as “the pinch” to close down electrical energy in Las Vegas.

The expertise may be mounted on to a wide range of army automobiles, and makes use of a cell energy supply to provide pulses of a radio frequency power in a beam that may fireplace sequenced photographs at a single goal or be broadened to hit a sequence of targets.

The weapon generates an electromagnetic pulse that overloads digital circuits and switches gadgets off.

Minister for defence procurement James Cartlidge mentioned: “We are already a force to be reckoned with on science and technology, and developments like RFDEW not only make our personnel more lethal and better protected on the battlefield, but also keep the UK a world leader on innovative military kit.

“The struggle in Ukraine has proven us the significance of deploying uncrewed techniques, however we should have the ability to defend towards them too. As we ramp up our defence spending within the coming years, our Defence Drone Strategy will guarantee we’re on the forefront of this warfighting evolution.”

The new weapons system will undergo extensive testing with British soldiers over the summer.

It is being developed by a joint team from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), working with UK industry under Project Hersa.

DSTL chief executive Paul Hollinshead said: “These game-changing techniques will ship decisive operational benefit to the UK armed forces, saving lives and defeating lethal threats.

“World-class capabilities such as this are only possible because of decades of research, expertise and investment in science and technology at DSTL and our partners in UK industry.”