On October 6, 2026, Defense News reported that the Pentagon had named four directed-energy weapons for a homeland counter-drone pilot, the first such systems the military will field and test at U.S. bases under a program ordered by Congress. The four are AeroVironment's Palletized High-Energy Laser, Epirus's Leonidas high-powered microwave, Kord's Firefly high-energy laser and Boeing's Compact Laser Weapon System. The pilot is run by Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), the Army-led organization set up last year to coordinate counter-drone work across the military and other federal agencies. It will run for a year, with service members operating and maintaining the weapons, and it aims to measure performance, cost and what it takes to keep the systems running.
The test sites were chosen in May: Fort Huachuca in Arizona and Fort Bliss in Texas, both tied to the southern border mission, plus Naval Base Kitsap in Washington, Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota and Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The Pentagon release does not say which system goes where, how many will be fielded or what the pilot will cost, and operations are expected to begin later this year. That is typical for an announcement of this kind, and it means the real story is still ahead. What has been decided is the list of competitors, not which technology will win.
The four systems are not interchangeable. A laser must dwell on one drone until it burns through, while a high-powered microwave can disable a swarm in one burst by overwhelming electronics, though its wider footprint raises concern about effects on nearby systems. Among the lasers, AeroVironment's is a palletized version of its LOCUST system that the company says tracked and defeated target drones aboard the carrier George H.W. Bush in October 2025. Boeing's is a lower-power system that needs longer on target but is smaller and easier to move, and Kord says its truck-mounted Firefly typically needs a few seconds to down a small drone. Leonidas is the only microwave in the pilot and is the basis of the Army's prototype system for defending against swarms.
Cost is the main selling point, and also the claim most worth treating carefully. A shot from a laser or microwave costs a fraction of a missile or even a gun round, and leaves no unexploded ordnance. But the task force director, Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, said in August that he is skeptical of per-shot arithmetic alone, pointing out that a system costing $6 million that fires once a year cannot honestly be said to cost pennies per shot. The performance figures in the article are also company-reported, including Boeing's claim of nearly 500 drones defeated in testing and Epirus's claim that Leonidas disabled all 61 target drones in a 2025 demonstration. They are encouraging, but they come from vendors, and the pilot's purpose is to produce independent data.
The pilot also follows a rough start. In February, the FAA briefly closed the airspace over El Paso, Texas, after a counter-drone laser was used near Fort Bliss without proper coordination, and the FAA later said a safety review found the laser systems tested, with safety controls in place, did not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft. That episode is a reminder that the hard problems at home are not only technical but regulatory, since these weapons must operate in busy civilian airspace. It also sits within a larger push. On September 29, JIATF-401 awarded 10 contracts worth up to $4.15 billion for sensors, optical sights and gun-based systems under the Domestic Shield effort to protect priority sites, and the Army gave AeroVironment a $464.8 million contract in September to produce LOCUST X3 lasers.
Ultimately, this pilot is a test of whether directed energy can move from demonstration to dependable base defence. Three markers will show how it goes: the December shoot-off at Dugway Proving Ground, where additional laser and microwave systems will compete and good performers could receive purchase orders quickly, the data on real operating costs once service members run the systems for a year, and whether the FAA coordination holds up. If it works, directed energy becomes one layer of a mixed defence that still relies on guns, sensors and interceptors.
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