New military weapon destroys electronics

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in conjunction with the U.S. Office of Naval Research is currently testing a device that can destroy electronics.

The High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon (HiJENKS), which has been under development for five years, is a high powered weapon that fries electronics with pulsed bursts of microwave energy, disabling such electronics without physical force, according to its developers.

The technology can reportedly cause the type of disruption that fries circuits, thereby halting a threat — the navigation computer in a missile, or the radar and targeting system of an anti-air missile installation, for instance — while also leaving the physical parts of the system intact.

Unlike its predecessor, the Counter-electronics High-Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), which was designed to travel in the case of a bomber-launched cruise missile, it is still not specified what form HiJENKS will take. According to its developers, HiJENKS could potentially be mounted on a new cruise missile, carried in a weapon pod that draws power from a plane or as the primary weapon system of a drone. Its smaller footprint means that the technology could be used on a wide range of carrier systems.

The two-month long test of the technology is currently underway in California.