Epirus Leonidas high-power microwave weapon added to Pentagon counter-drone marketplace
What's the deal? Epirus' Leonidas high-power microwave counter-drone weapon has been added to the Counter-UAS Marketplace run by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon's online counter-drone catalogue for US military units and federal agencies, the company said on 20 October 2026.
Why it matters: Leonidas uses a phased array of solid-state gallium nitride amplifiers to fire rapid pulses of microwave energy that disable the electronics inside drones, with a single pulse able to affect several targets at once — a cheaper answer to large swarms than one-to-one interceptors. Because the system is software-defined, Epirus says it can defeat drones flown by radio, by fibre-optic cable or autonomously; the fibre-optic claim matters for Ukraine, where both sides now use cable-guided drones immune to radio jamming. The listing follows the January 2026 announcement that Leonidas had disabled a fibre-optic-controlled drone in testing.
Read more: Defence Blog
