IN Brief:
- The US Marine Corps has awarded Epirus an $11 million HAVOC contract through the Office of Naval Research.
- The system uses a universal sled mount intended to integrate high-power microwave capability across manned and unmanned Marine ground vehicles.
- HAVOC evolves the ExDECS prototype delivered in 2025 with increased power, coverage, reliability, software tuning, and support for mobile Low Altitude Air Defense operations.
Epirus has received an $11 million US Marine Corps contract to develop and deliver HAVOC, a mobile high-power microwave counter-UAS system intended to protect forward forces against individual drones and coordinated swarms.
The High-power microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability programme is being awarded through the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research. HAVOC will evolve the Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm system already delivered for Marine experimentation, with a universal sled mount intended to support installation across both manned and unmanned ground vehicles.
That common interface is an important part of the programme. High-power microwave equipment places unusual demands on a vehicle because the system has to package electrical generation, power conditioning, thermal management, radio-frequency hardware, computing, command interfaces, and structural support without preventing the platform from carrying out its wider mission.
A universal mount cannot remove those requirements, but it can reduce the amount of mechanical and electrical redesign needed for each host vehicle. Attachment points, power connections, communications, cooling, safety interlocks, and software interfaces can be standardised around a common architecture rather than engineered again for every installation.
HAVOC follows ExDECS, which Epirus delivered to the Navy for Marine Corps experimentation in 2025. The earlier prototype was based on the company’s Leonidas Expeditionary high-power microwave technology and was intended to examine how non-kinetic counter-swarm effects could support Low Altitude Air Defense and Ground Based Air Defense missions.
The new programme takes that work further towards a mobile field configuration. Epirus says HAVOC will increase power output and coverage while improving electronic effects, reliability, and operational efficiency. Software-driven tuning will allow the emitted waveform to be adjusted as the system develops rather than leaving performance fixed entirely by the hardware delivered at manufacture.
High-power microwave counter-UAS operates on a different magazine model from conventional missiles or gun ammunition. Instead of assigning a physical interceptor to each incoming aircraft, the system directs electromagnetic energy against electronics within an engagement area, potentially allowing one emission to affect multiple targets in a swarm.
That one-to-many effect is attractive where relatively inexpensive drones arrive in sufficient numbers to exhaust conventional interceptors. It does not make high-power microwave a universal replacement for kinetic air defence, because range, geometry, target electronics, weather, terrain, friendly systems, and engagement requirements still affect performance.
The engineering trade-offs are correspondingly different. Useful effects depend on generating and directing enough electromagnetic energy while keeping the system within the power and thermal limits of the host platform. Solid-state electronics, antenna design, pulse generation, software, cooling, electrical storage, and vehicle integration all become parts of the weapon.
Electromagnetic compatibility is particularly important. A vehicle carrying radios, navigation equipment, computers, sensors, and other electronics cannot treat high-power microwave output as an isolated effect. The weapon has to operate in a way that protects the host platform and avoids unacceptable disruption to friendly equipment around it.
The universal sled concept will therefore be tested on more than mechanical fit. Each vehicle type has different available power, cooling, communications, payload capacity, and electromagnetic characteristics. A common mount only becomes useful if those variations can be accommodated without turning every installation into another major development programme.
Epirus is positioning HAVOC as part of a layered defensive system. The company identifies air-defence equipment, radar sites, communications nodes, refuelling points, power equipment, and other forward assets as potential protection tasks for Marine Low Altitude Air Defense formations.
Those locations are attractive drone targets because they concentrate equipment that is valuable, comparatively static, and difficult to disperse completely. A non-kinetic layer capable of repeated engagements could reduce demand on missile and gun magazines while leaving kinetic weapons available for targets outside the microwave system’s effective envelope.
The contract includes training, service, and sustainment support, with options for an additional system and related solutions. That support requirement reflects the fact that a software-defined directed-energy weapon creates a continuing configuration burden after delivery.
Software baselines, waveform updates, calibration, cooling performance, electronic health, vehicle interfaces, and operator settings all have to remain controlled if systems deployed with different units are expected to deliver predictable effects. A hardware fleet running several poorly documented software versions would quickly create a test and sustainment problem.
Production repeatability will matter if HAVOC moves beyond the initial programme. High-power radio-frequency equipment depends on consistent electronic components, assembly, cooling, calibration, and acceptance testing. Scaling output therefore requires test infrastructure able to verify that later production systems generate the same controlled performance as the units used during qualification.
The Marines now have a programme aimed specifically at closing the gap between an expeditionary prototype and a mobile subsystem capable of moving with ground formations. The next useful evidence will come from vehicle integration, electromagnetic compatibility, reliability, power demand, and performance against different drone configurations.
If those areas can be demonstrated without creating an impractical burden on the host vehicle, HAVOC gives the Marine Corps another counter-UAS layer whose magazine is governed by electrical power and thermal management rather than the number of physical interceptors carried into the field.
