High Microwave-Powered (HPM) C-UAS for Pakistan: Is It Worth the Investment? Quwa Premium

In 2024, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had laid out plans to procure high-powered microwave (HPM) counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) solutions, indicating that it was taking the looming threat of swarming drones seriously. While these exact threats did not emerge from Pakistan’s recent conflict with India, the extensive use of drones, notably loitering munitions, from both sides underlined that one day – perhaps sooner than later – drone swarms will be a fixture of future fighting between South Asia’s nuclear-armed neighbours.

While its efforts preceded the brief, but intense, conflict in May 2025, the PAF was already at work setting up the foundations of its future air defence posture, which would encompass a wide inventory of systems spanning from long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAM) to short-range anti-air guns (AAG), and within that mix, HPMs.

The domestic industry is also contributing towards this architecture, with several initiatives on scaling the sensor/situational awareness front. The National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation (NRTC), for example, developed the AM-350S, an S-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) long-range surveillance radar, while the PAF’s in-house National Aerospace & Scientific Technology Park (NASTP) revealed the SR-3D, a short-range gap-filler radar. 

Ultimately, radars (and other sensors) like these will be paired with hard-kill and soft-kill C-UAS solutions, with HPMs piecing into the wider picture with the goal of neutralizing drone swarms, which will leverage overwhelming mass to saturate conventional air defences. In this backdrop, HPMs offer an economical way to deal with that mass, saving the PAF costly AAG ammunition and SAM missiles in dealing with otherwise incredibly low-priced threats. 

It will also be interesting to see how Pakistan approaches HPM (and other directed energy weapons). On the one hand, there is certainly a major opportunity for foreign industry players as they can provision their designs for testing and adopting quickly. Yet, on the other hand, there is also the fact that Pakistan wants to source its C-UAS systems locally, with entities like the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DESTO) playing a leading role today.