Leonidas AGV Delivers Mobile High-Power Microwave Defense Against Drone Swarms.

General Dynamics Land Systems has unveiled Leonidas AGV, combining military mobility with Epirus’ high-power microwave technology to defeat drone swarms without consuming costly interceptor missiles. Showcased at AUSA in Washington, D.C., on 13 October 2026, the system is designed to disrupt multiple unmanned aircraft electronically, delivering one-to-many effects against increasingly complex aerial threats. Epirus reports that Leonidas defeated 61 of 61 drones during an August 2025 demonstration, including a 49-drone swarm with a single pulse, underscoring its potential to provide sustained mobile protection against saturation attacks while preserving kinetic interceptors for threats requiring a different response.

General Dynamics Land Systems unveiled the Leonidas AGV, a mobile high-power microwave counter-drone vehicle designed to defeat coordinated drone swarms while preserving costly kinetic interceptors (Picture Source: Army Recognition Group)

The rapid expansion of low-cost drones, coordinated swarms and increasingly resilient unmanned systems is forcing armed forces to reconsider how critical assets can be defended without exhausting expensive interceptor inventories. During the AUSA Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, D.C., on 13 October 2026, General Dynamics Land Systems showcased Leonidas AGV, combining military mobility with Epirus’ high-power microwave technology to provide a mobile layer of counter-UAS defense. According to official information released by General Dynamics Land Systems, the vehicle integrates the Leonidas HPM system with increased electrical-power generation and military-grade vehicle enhancements, while supporting integration with the U.S. Army’s air-defense command-and-control architecture.

At the heart of Leonidas AGV is Epirus’ Leonidas high-power microwave architecture, a software-defined directed-energy capability designed to produce electromagnetic effects against unmanned aircraft electronics. Its key advantage lies in the ability to generate one-to-many effects, offering an alternative to defenses that may need to expend individual kinetic interceptors against every incoming drone. Epirus has already demonstrated the scale of this approach: during an August 2025 live-fire event at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, the company reports that Leonidas defeated 61 of 61 drones, including a 49-drone swarm defeated with a single pulse.

Rather than carrying a finite magazine of missiles, Leonidas operates with what Epirus describes as a deep electronic magazine powered by electricity, creating an attractive defensive model for installations, forward positions and critical infrastructure facing repeated saturation attacks. This architecture has the potential to change the economics of counter-drone warfare by preserving costly kinetic interceptors for threats that specifically require them while using directed energy against larger concentrations of electronically vulnerable targets.

More AUSA 2026 News from Army Recognition

The Leonidas ground vehicle displayed at AUSA 2026 takes that defensive concept and gives it mobility. General Dynamics Land Systems has modified the commercially derived Ford F600 chassis for military missions with increased-capacity suspension, a robust drivetrain and increased electrical-power generation, an especially relevant feature for an energy-intensive HPM payload. The vehicle also integrates with Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control, or FAAD C2, and GDLS states that it can support effectors beyond HPM, including traditional kinetic weapons. That combination points toward something broader than a microwave system mounted on a truck: Leonidas AGV can be viewed as a potential mobile node within a layered counter-UAS architecture in which sensors and command systems help determine whether a threat should be defeated by directed energy, electronic warfare or kinetic fire. Epirus brings the HPM effector and its rapidly evolving counter-electronics expertise, while General Dynamics Land Systems contributes the vehicle engineering, military integration, power architecture and battlefield-system experience needed to translate that technology into a maneuverable military capability.

The F600 displayed at the AUSA Annual Meeting also forms part of a wider technological path toward autonomous mobile counter-drone defense. On March 24, 2026, Epirus, General Dynamics Land Systems and Kodiak AI unveiled the Leonidas Autonomous Ground Vehicle, or AGV, integrating the Leonidas HPM platform onto a commercial-grade truck equipped with the AI-powered Kodiak Driver, with GDLS acting as lead system integrator. The companies officially describe that configuration as a fully autonomous vehicle capable of operating without human intervention or through teleoperation. It can rapidly deploy to pre-planned interception points, maneuver around a defensive perimeter and reposition to protect military installations, forward operating bases, airports, ports, energy infrastructure and other critical assets.

Operationally, that approach could allow an HPM defensive layer to move toward emerging attack corridors instead of requiring every protected asset to remain inside a fixed defensive footprint, while also reducing the need to keep personnel aboard a vehicle positioned in exposed areas. The AUSA 2026 F600 announcement does not state that the vehicle displayed in Washington incorporates the Kodiak autonomous-driving package, so the two configurations should remain technically distinct; together, however, they reveal how Epirus and GDLS are progressively expanding Leonidas from a directed-energy effector into a family of mobile counter-UAS solutions.

That evolution arrives as the drone threat becomes harder to defeat using a single countermeasure. Fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones are a clear example: instead of relying on the conventional radio-frequency command links targeted by many electronic-warfare systems, they remain connected to their operators through physical fiber-optic cable. Epirus announced in January 2026 that Leonidas had successfully disabled a fiber-optic-guided UAS during a December 2025 live-fire demonstration at a U.S. government testing site, describing it as the first known use of electromagnetic interference to defeat this category of threat. The important technical distinction is that Leonidas does not necessarily need to sever the communication link between operator and aircraft; HPM is intended to create effects directly within the target’s onboard electronics.

That gives the technology relevance against swarms, conventional remotely controlled drones and emerging “dark drone” threats designed to reduce their vulnerability to RF jamming. The timing is also notable: on 9 October 2026, immediately ahead of AUSA, Epirus announced that Leonidas had been selected for a Department of War directed-energy pilot program led by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, placing the technology within a broader U.S. effort to expand operational use of high-power microwave and high-energy laser systems for homeland counter-UAS defense.

Leonidas AGV represents far more than the placement of a directed-energy system on a commercial-derived truck. Its deeper value lies in combining mobility, increased onboard electrical generation, one-to-many microwave effects, Army command-and-control integration and compatibility with additional kinetic effectors in an architecture designed for the realities of modern drone warfare. Epirus deserves strong recognition for advancing high-power microwave technology into a tested counter-swarm capability, including the defeat of large drone formations and fiber-optic-controlled aircraft, while General Dynamics Land Systems has applied its extensive land-systems expertise to transform that technology into a militarized mobile platform.

Kodiak AI adds another dimension through the autonomous AGV configuration, demonstrating how unmanned mobility could allow defensive coverage to reposition dynamically while reducing personnel exposure. Together, the three companies have produced a powerful example of how specialized industrial expertise can be combined rapidly around one of the most urgent operational challenges facing modern armed forces.

Its presentation at AUSA 2026 provides an equally appropriate setting. Taking place from 12–14 October 2026 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting brings together more than 40,000 attendees, over 750 exhibits and representation from more than 100 countries, reinforcing its position as one of the world’s leading forums for land-power innovation. This year’s program even places direct attention on counter-swarm warfare through a dedicated “Stopping the Swarm” discussion on October 13, reflecting how rapidly massed unmanned threats have moved to the center of Army force-protection planning.

AUSA deserves credit for creating the professional environment in which Army leaders, international delegations and industry innovators can examine technologies such as Leonidas AGV against real operational requirements. As inexpensive drones, autonomous systems, saturation attacks and fiber-optic-controlled aircraft continue to reshape warfare, Leonidas AGV offers a compelling vision of how critical assets and maneuvering forces could gain a mobile, scalable and economically sustainable layer of protection, one capable of confronting many incoming threats without answering every drone with another expensive missile.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.