California firm builds microwave drone killer that fits on a squad vehicle

A California antenna company has officially announced a High Power Microwave weapon that can fry drone electronics without firing a round, and it is already small enough to mount on an Infantry Squad Vehicle.

ThinKom Solutions, headquartered in Hawthorne, California, announced on April 30, 2026, the self-funded development of Alecto, a mobile High Power Microwave directed energy system designed to defeat UAS swarms. The announcement follows the company’s entrance into the HPM directed energy market in August 2025 and builds on a demonstration at the U.S. Army’s Cross Domain Fires Concept Focused Warfighting Experiment, where a ThinKom HPM system appeared mounted on a pickup truck, cued by Echodyne’s EchoShield radar. That demonstration — a satellite antenna company’s directed energy weapon on a commercial pickup truck, ready to engage drone targets — is a reasonable summary of where counter-UAS technology is heading and how fast it is getting there.

ThinKom spent more than two decades building phased array antenna systems for satellite communications, and the core technology behind Alecto — a proprietary design called VICTS, for Variable Inclination Continuous Transverse Stub — turns out to be unusually well suited for the extreme power demands of HPM weapons. The VICTS design is a steerable, mechanical phased array that provides high precision and low sidelobes, and ThinKom has already proven its VICTS arrays to gigawatt-level power handling in development and testing. Combining that antenna architecture with best-in-class vacuum electronics gives Alecto peak power densities that the company describes as orders of magnitude higher than gallium nitride-based Active Electronically Scanned Arrays — the solid-state technology that most conventional radar and electronic warfare systems use. That power density advantage is what makes HPM effective against drone electronics: sufficient microwave energy delivered to a target disrupts or destroys the onboard electronics that keep it flying, without requiring a physical projectile to hit the airframe.

The operational implications of that “no projectile required” characteristic are substantial. Conventional counter-UAS kinetic systems — whether missiles, guns, or interceptor drones — have a finite magazine. Engaging a swarm of 50 drones with a system that fires physical rounds means expending 50 rounds, and when the magazine is empty the engagement capability is gone until resupply arrives. An HPM system’s magazine is effectively limited by its power supply, not by a finite stock of physical munitions. Alecto’s combination of deep magazine and low cost per shot, paired with rapid beam steering and instantaneous effects, is specifically designed to address the swarm problem — the scenario where adversaries overwhelm kinetic defenses through volume rather than individual platform sophistication.

Dan Roman, VP of EW/HPM at ThinKom, articulated the company’s approach to accelerating development: “With Alecto, ThinKom demonstrates its dedication to equipping the warfighter with critical, enabling solutions needed on the modern battlefield. By investing our own capital, we have been able to greatly accelerate the development cycles, embodying the agility required by the Department of War.” Self-funded development allows ThinKom to move at commercial speed rather than government program speed — a distinction that matters enormously in a technology area where the threat is evolving faster than traditional acquisition timelines can accommodate.

The size, weight, power, and cost reductions Alecto achieves relative to traditional HPM systems are what make the platform’s mobility claims credible. Conventional directed energy systems have historically required large vehicles, significant power generation infrastructure, and specialized support equipment that limits their deployment to fixed sites or large platform installations. Alecto’s SWaP-C reductions are significant enough to enable installation on Infantry Squad Vehicles and Unmanned Ground Vehicles — platforms at the small unit level where the drone threat is most immediate and where the logistics of resupplying kinetic counter-UAS ammunition is most difficult. A system that fits on an ISV and provides horizon-to-horizon coverage in a low-profile, compact design changes the tactical calculus for dismounted and light forces in ways that previous HPM systems could not.

Alecto features a simple tablet interface and compatibility with key command and control networks, avoiding the specialized training requirements that have historically slowed adoption of advanced electronic systems at the unit level. It adheres to U.S. military HERO, HERP, and HERF safety standards — the electromagnetic radiation protection requirements that govern the safe use of high-power systems around personnel, fuel, and equipment. Fire-on-the-move capability means the system does not require the vehicle to stop and stabilize before engaging, which matters considerably for mobile operations where stopping creates vulnerability.

A November 2025 memorandum from Emil Michael, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, identified directed energy as one of the critical technology areas where innovation is needed for the armed services in support of the National Defense Strategy. That policy signal — combined with the Army’s active experimentation with HPM systems at exercises like the Cross Domain Fires warfighting experiment — reflects an institutional recognition that directed energy counter-UAS capability is no longer a future requirement. It is a current one.

ThinKom describes Alecto as its first HPM offering, with plans to continue developing solutions for base defense, maritime, airborne, homeland security, and Integrated Air and Missile Defense applications. The company that spent two decades making antennas that pointed at satellites is now making antennas that point at drones. The physics, it turns out, transfers rather well.