A Huntsville, Alabama defense company gave an up-close demonstration this week of a powerful new anti-drone laser system designed to knock unmanned aerial threats out of the sky before they can endanger U.S. military personnel or American civilians.
KBR and its Huntsville-based subsidiary Kord demonstrated FIREFLY, a mobile high-energy laser weapon designed to detect, track, and destroy unmanned aircraft before they can reach American troops, civilian gatherings, or critical infrastructure.
Attendees were required to put on laser-protection goggles before the test began. On a live screen, observers watched as the system’s sensors and AI-assisted targeting technology identified and followed a drone.
Then FIREFLY took it down.
Axios reported that the truck-mounted 20-kilowatt system disabled the quadcopter in under four seconds. Kord officials said the onboard batteries provide roughly 15 minutes of total “laser-on time,” the unit can be deployed in about 30 minutes, and an operator can learn the controls in as little as five minutes.
“This is a homegrown product,” KBR’s David Zoller said, according to WAFF.
“I think often we can look at the work that happens in Huntsville, you see Redstone, you see all the traffic and everything, and you kinda have to wonder what’s going on over there,” Zoller continued. “Well, it’s protecting the people, and this is one of the methods that we’re doing it.”
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Last month, Lockheed Martin also unveiled the MORFIUS™ X-Rotor, a reusable, ground-launched aircraft carrying a high-power microwave weapon that the company says can neutralize more than 50 enemy drones during a single flight.
Instead of launching expensive interceptors one-by-one at cheap enemy drones, MORFIUS flies into the swarm and blasts them with directed microwave energy, frying their electronics and knocking them out of the sky. Lockheed says the system can neutralize more than 50 enemy drones in a single flight.
MORFIUS is a ground-launched X-rotor unmanned aircraft carrying a high-power microwave payload. It is designed for field recovery and reuse.
After frying a swarm, it returns, gets recovered, and can launch again. That means a dramatically lower cost-per-kill compared to firing a missile at every single $20,000–$50,000 kamikaze drone.
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