Fast-flying Shahed drones spur new class of interceptors

WASHINGTON—A surge in Russia’s use of jet-powered Shahed drones in Ukraine has spurred the need for super fast interceptors to defeat them. And it’s a problem U.S.-based dronemaker Powerus hopes to solve. 

“We constantly need to move ahead of the threat. The next threat that we see to get in front of is the jet-powered Shahed drones,” Brett Velicovich, cofounder and president of the dronemaker Powerus, told Defense One. “Jet-powered Shaheds are very difficult to defeat because of how fast they are, and so to defeat those, we need jet-powered interceptors. So that is one of the things that we're looking at…to be able to fly an interceptor at 600 kilometers per hour, 700 kilometers per hour. That's going to require a lot more automation. It's going to require a lot more R&D.”

Newer versions of Shahed drones propelled by jet engines have increasingly been appearing on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield in recent months, pushing Ukraine to fortify its air defenses. Those fast flying Shaheds require interceptors that can match those speeds—around 370 mph, or 600 kilometers per hour. Other versions of the Shahed fly just over 100 mph. There’s also concern that other security risks could crop up as other nations adopt the newer Shaheds. 

Powerus is just about a year old and has former Pentagon and first Trump administration officials on its board.

Velicovich doesn’t have a target date for developing its rocket or jet-powered interceptor, but the goal is to move quickly. 

“I spend a lot of time in Ukraine. There's a good chance that by the end of this year, the majority of Russian drones that are sent into downtown Kyiv will be jet-powered,” he said, “so we really need to move at that timeline.”

But churning out rocket- or jet-propelled interceptors at the same rate as the upgraded Shahed drones can be costly and difficult. 

“They can build these things for $20,000-$30,000, and they can turn them out in massive, massive quantities. And so, to do that in an interceptor is very difficult,” Velicovich said. “But the technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, so we'll find a solution for that I think pretty soon. The entire industry is racing to figure that out.” 

Powerus, which recently went public, has been busy in recent months.

The Rock Hill, S.C.-based company unveiled its fully autonomous interceptor, Guardian 3, during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference here. The anti-drone tech is the latest addition to a family of interceptors, including the semiautonomous Guardian 2 and remotely piloted Guardian 1.

“Guardian 3 takes that final terminal phase of a manual operator out of the loop, and it is fully automated, similar to how you might fire a Patriot missile. The difference between us and the Patriot missiles is that…you can build these Guardian 3 systems in the thousands very easily,” Velicovich said. 

The company aims to produce 5,000 interceptors per month by November, with an ultimate goal of being able to deliver 10 times that. 

“We want to get to that point where it's just massive, massive scale because these things are a lot like artillery rounds, and we need to build them like artillery rounds. So we need more companies out there that have the industrial capacity…to turn these things out,” he said. 

Also at the conference, Powerus signed a deal with Parsons on the showroom floor to pair its radar systems with Guardian interceptors to detect oncoming drone threats. 

Earlier this year, the Air Force tapped Powerus in an $82 million deal for counterdrone systems, which includes the Guardian family of interceptors. The company has also branched out to international buyers, striking an unspecified deal with the Pakistan army for unmanned aerial systems.