Modelling the Complete DTIN Killchain: A Comparative Study of Laser and Kinetic Effectors with RADAR Detection Against Small Drones in Counter-UAS Scenarios

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, are increasingly being used in both civil and military contexts. The advances in embedded computing power are enabling some UAS to operate fully autonomously, posing significant challenges to existing countermeasures. In response to this evolving threat landscape, directed energy weapon (DEW) technologies, including high energy lasers (HEL), are emerging as promising solutions in the counter-UAS (C-UAS) domain to complement kinetic means. This is due to their low cost per shot, virtually unlimited ammunition capacity, speed-of-light engagement, high accuracy level, and scalability of on-target effects tailored to the UAS threat level. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and performance of HEL technology as a killchain-integrated C-UAS solution in various scenarios, using modelling and simulation, and comparing those to what could be obtained by using kinetic effectors. Such performance is obtained by integrating simplified representations of UAS with parametric HEL and kinetic effector models. This paper contributes to ongoing efforts to improve security measures against the escalating threat of drone proliferation in today’s dynamic and complex environments.