# High Power Microwave and Unconventional Weapon Technologies

**R-2A activity** of project 624867 — Advanced Weapons & Survivability Technology  
**Program element:** 0602605F — Directed Energy Technology  
**Component:** U.S. Air Force · **Budget Activity:** 2  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602605F/624867/a0  
**Parent:** https://hitchintel.com/programs/0602605F/624867

## Summary

This activity requests $41.0M in FY2027, 100% of project 624867, up 137% on FY2026. The R-2A exhibit describes it across FY2026–FY2027, including what the FY2027 money is planned to buy.

## What the FY2027 request buys

**FY2027 planned work.** In FY 2027 and out, the work associated with the "High Power Microwave Effects” effort will be merged into the "High Power Microwave and Unconventional Weapon Technologies” effort to foster better integration of technologies and effects to enable quicker responsiveness to warfighter needs. Total combined funding for the "High Power Microwave Effects" and "High Power Microwave and Unconventional Weapon Technologies" efforts is 39.236 million in FY 2025 and 43.314 million in FY 2026. - Continue advancing, supporting, and transitioning directed energy weapon modeling, simulation, and analysis tools. Activities include improving the user interface of the software to improve ease of use and expand the user base while also reducing the computing power required to enable faster simulations. - Continue the development of solid-state devices for high power microwave (HPM) pulse power systems. Activities include: seeking to increase the voltage and current handling of the devices to allow for power systems to increase the repetition rate of the source to enhance effectiveness of HPM systems against targets. - Continue development of new and novel antennas. Activities include: focus on a single design that is conformal to a surface so it can be used on mobile platforms such as vehicles or aircraft, and able to steer the beam to point at a target. A major focus is to increase the power handling of phase antennas, so they can handle the output power from an HPM source. - Continue to populate an in-house database of source designs. This database is crucial to being able to quickly build and test new capabilities to be responsive to changing warfighters' needs. Activities include: focusing on development of high frequency sources (previously in the "High Power Microwave Efforts" effort). - Continue to perform directed energy weapon modeling, simulation, and analysis. Activities include: provide valuable military utility data to the larger systems analysis community to allow HPM concepts to be validated before initiating a demonstration (previously in the "High Power Microwave Effects” effort). - Pause effort to develop HPM sources to address high priority, real-world events. This effort includes optimizing source designs to expand the threats susceptible to high power microwave systems, conforms the technology to relevant future platform size and weight restrictions, and prepares the technology for the 2030 next-generation DAF HPM technology demonstration for aircraft protection and point defense applications. Work is expected to resume in FY 2028. - Continue in-house government evaluation of mission sets for particle beam technologies. Activities include: focus on defining measures of effectiveness. - Commence development of modular line replaceable units for HPM. Activities include: develop common components across multiple systems to allow for economies of scale and reduce development times of new capabilities.

**FY2026 to FY2027 change.** FY 2027 funding increased compared to FY 2026 by $23.641 million due to the transfer of the High-Power Microwave Effects effort and associated funding to the High Power Microwave and Unconventional Weapon Technologies effort to foster better integration of technologies and effects to enable quicker responsiveness to warfighter needs. However, the overall funding for High Power Microwave research decreased from FY 2026 by $2.360 million.

## Before the request year

**FY2026 plans — current year.** - Continue advancing, supporting, and transitioning directed energy weapon modeling, simulation, and analysis tools, including more realistic weather effects on directed energy, updated laser vulnerability modules, and updated high power microwave (HPM) vulnerability modules to the defense wargaming communities. This work ensures that mission partners are utilizing up-to-date computer models to create predictions for considering and utilizing directed energy technology in the future battle space. - Continue the development of solid-state devices for high power microwave (HPM) pulse power systems. This work seeks to increase reliability, increase pulse repetition rates, and improve lifetime for aircraft protection and point defense applications. - Continue in-house government exploration of new and novel antenna designs to reduce size, weight, and infrastructure while maintaining performance for use in point defense applications. The antenna is the largest volume sub-component of HPM technologies. A new antenna design will reduce size, weight, and infrastructure while maintaining directed energy performance. These attributes will increase the technology mobility and transportability, increase the number of candidate platforms for potential integration, and extend the number of military applications for HPM technology. - Pause effort to develop HPM sources to address high priority, real-world events. A HPM source is a component that creates the initial high power electromagnetic wave which is amplified and emitted from the HPM device. This effort includes optimizing source designs to expand the threats susceptible to high power microwave systems, conforms the technology to relevant future platform size and weight restrictions, and prepares the technology for the 2030 next-generation DAF HPM technology demonstration for aircraft protection and point defense applications. - Stop proactive research of arctic climate microwave propagation, material-interaction effects, and technology employment, to support future military applications in austere environments. This effort decreases the risk to utilizing high power microwave directed energy technology for operational suitability in all environments relevant to military applications. - Commence in-house government evaluation of mission sets for particle beam technologies. This evaluation will compare recent advances in particle beam component technology maturation against updates to strategic defense priorities to identify potential asymmetric advantages to benefit military application.

## Funding

| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 15.4 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 17.3 |
| FY2027 | Request | 41.0 |

> Prior, current and budget year only — an R-2A activity carries no five-year plan. It sums exactly into its project in the request year and not necessarily in any other.

## Other activities in project 624867

- High Power Microwave Effects — FY2027 0.0

## Source & machine access

- **Source:** FY2027 Department of the Air Force RDT&E Budget Justification, Exhibit R-2A, PE 0602605F project 624867 (PB PB2027). Narrative is the government's own text.
- **No marks, no contractors at this grain** — congressional marks land on the program element and R-3 performers on the project.
- **MCP:** `mcp.hitchintel.com` — `budget_get_activity`.

*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Budget figures are requests/estimates, not obligations.*