Auriga Space and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (DEVCOM AC) have signed a three-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to advance electromagnetic (EM) accelerators as a lower-cost, high-cadence solution to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).
“Auriga has been developing and testing its electromagnetic propulsion technology under existing Department of War (DoW) contracts, and this agreement brings DEVCOM AC into that work,” said the company in a press release. “Under the CRADA, both organizations will share data and expertise to map capabilities and define a development path to bring EM-based counter-drone technology to the field.
“The rise of low-cost, high-volume drone threats has exposed a hard tradeoff in current counter-UAS approaches: missile-based interceptors offer range and lethality but at a cost-per-shot and magazine depth that strain against swarm-scale attacks, while directed-energy and other kinetic alternatives each carry their own tradeoffs in range, performance, or logistics burden. Electromagnetic accelerators offer a step outside of that curve: drawing on electrical rather than chemical energy to enable deep magazines and rapid, repeatable firing of inert and guided munitions at a fraction of traditional cost, without the logistics burden of propellant resupply.
“Auriga’s EM architecture uses magnetic levitation to eliminate bore contact, while providing adjustable software-controlled acceleration profiles. The company’s development roadmap includes a containerized, transportable EM launch platform designed for exactly this kind of deployable counter-drone mission.
“This CRADA builds on Auriga’s broader portfolio of EM accelerator work for the DoW, including efforts supporting hypersonic test infrastructure and precision launch applications, and reflects continued interest across the defense community in EM technologies as a complement to existing kinetic and directed-energy counter-UAS systems.
This is, in effect, a reusable, electrically powered launch platform that replaces traditional rockets with an electromagnetic accelerator for propulsion, eliminating propellant, cutting cost, and launching payloads on-demand.
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