Technology
How HyperJet engages a drone
HyperJet is an automatic high-rate turret. It fires groups of high-speed droplets formed from a water-based shear-thickening fluid with functional additives.
Engagement window
A few seconds per target
A high-speed drone may stay inside the engagement zone for only a few seconds. In that time the system has to detect the target, predict its trajectory, aim, engage, observe the result and decide whether the target is defeated, then continue or switch to the next threat. When several threats arrive at once, each one gets less time.
The turret carries the nozzle module and aiming sensors. Fluid and pressure come from the pump station.
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Detect and track
Plenoptic cameras, a narrow-beam mmWave radar and a multispectral strobe that picks out spinning propellers build a local track. External cueing can be fused in. The system operates without GNSS.
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Aim
Fire control predicts the trajectory of the target, and the turret follows it on both axes.
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Fire
The ultra-high-pressure pump drives the fluid through the nozzle module, which forms one projectile group per shot.
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Assess
The system observes the impact, confirms the hit and either continues the engagement or moves to the next target.
Shot steering
Aiming and shot steering
The turret performs coarse aiming. Fine aiming is electronic and takes place inside the barrel, on principles similar to those used in CRT displays and industrial inkjet printers.
The shape, density and distribution of the droplet group can be changed from one shot to the next. This compensates for vibration, backlash, turret acceleration and target motion, and each following shot is corrected faster than a mechanical turret can move.
The system can keep tracking a manoeuvring target, transfer fire quickly to another target, or concentrate on single components and fragments as a drone breaks apart.
Swarms
Engaging a swarm
Most air-defence systems are optimised to defeat single targets. Against a swarm, the system has to fill the volume the swarm occupies with enough damaging elements.
As target density rises, rate of fire, aiming speed, prioritisation and the speed of fire transfer decide the outcome. HyperJet combines a very high rate of fire with fast turret slew, so one turret can work through many targets in quick succession.
Defeat mechanism
Energy inside the engagement zone
The droplets carry enough energy to damage propellers, motors, optics, batteries, flight controllers, structural materials, shaped-charge liners and fuzes.
Most small drones stop working once a few critical components are damaged, so fire is concentrated on those parts.
Beyond the engagement zone the droplets lose velocity, energy and electrostatic charge and become ordinary liquid droplets. The energy stays inside the engagement zone, and collateral risk is low.
Measured energy at target and test results against drone materials are listed on the performance page.
Projectile formation
How a projectile is formed
Water from a 7,000-bar pump, similar to the pumps used in waterjet cutters, passes through a diamond restrictor into a proprietary mixer, where it is combined with additives.
The mixture then passes through a plasma Leidenfrost channel, where it is compressed and electrostatically charged. The Leidenfrost effect keeps the droplet off the channel walls, which prevents it from rolling into a toroidal shape.
Surface-tension additives make the droplet resistant to breakup. Until its charge dissipates, the droplet is much harder to tear apart.
Fluid and projectile groups
The fluid and the projectile group
Shear-thickening fluid
The consumable is a water-based non-Newtonian fluid. At low shear rates it flows like an ordinary liquid, so it is easy to pump, store and transport.
At the shear rates of a supersonic impact its resistance to deformation rises sharply, and each droplet behaves close to a solid body on impact and transfers its momentum to the target. Functional additives set viscosity, stability and impact behaviour.
The consumable is produced, shipped and stored as a liquid. Concentrated additives allow automated mixing.
Projectile groups
Each shot is a group of 50–100 droplets that flies as a comet-like string. While charged, the droplets in a group repel each other. The leading droplets slow down faster than those inside the group, so the group shortens with distance and the impacts on the target add up. Group size, density and spread are set shot by shot to suit the target.