Keynote Speech

The global security environment is being reshaped by the rapid proliferation of unmanned systems, autonomous platforms, and low-cost, high-volume drone swarms. Recent conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated that inexpensive unmanned aerial systems can impose disproportionate operational, psychological, and logistical burdens on modern forces. These threats are evolving faster than traditional defensive architectures can adapt, demanding engagement solutions that are scalable, have deep-magazines, and are effective across diverse operational contexts.
High Power Microwave (HPM) weapons present a compelling response to this challenge. Unlike kinetic interceptors or laser systems—whose effects are visible and intuitive—HPM systems operate through electromagnetic coupling to disrupt, degrade, or permanently damage electronic subsystems. Against unmanned systems that depend on fragile electronics, such effects can be decisive. Yet the invisible, probabilistic nature of HPM interactions has historically limited operational understanding and institutional confidence among warfighters, acquisition leaders, and policymakers.
This keynote will examine the current maturity of HPM technologies and outline the actions required to accelerate their transition from specialized research to fielded capability. It will emphasize the need for operator-relevant metrics that translate complex electromagnetic phenomena into mission-focused outcomes; rigorous and repeatable testing across representative targets and environments; coherent policy and legal frameworks that normalize HPM employment alongside kinetic and other directed-energy systems; and integrated modeling, simulation, and decision-support tools that help warfighters visualize effects and plan engagements with confidence.
Bridging the gap between technical sophistication and operational comprehension is now imperative. By aligning research, testing, policy, and strategic communication, the HPM community can deliver capabilities that are not only technically credible, but trusted, employable, and strategically decisive. This address will issue a call to action for the global EM community to accelerate progress, unify efforts, and ensure that HPM systems mature at a pace commensurate with the threats they are designed to counter.

The field of High Power Microwaves (HPM) or Directed Energy Microwaves is in its sixth decade following its inception in the late 1960s. During its first 25 years or so the growth of the field was termed the “power derby.” This period was characterized by researchers in the US and the Soviet Union pushing the envelope in terms of HPM power generated. The devices researched during this period were primarily oscillators. Then, following the end of the cold war in December 1991, the power derby basically ended as “pulse shortening” became an immediate research priority. During this period, the power levels being generated were so high that the output pulselengths could not sustain the powers without a breakdown occurring. At the same time, the fidelity of virtual prototyping (particle-in-cell simulations) had advanced to the extent that virtual prototyping now leads the HPM source design paradigm, replacing the experimentalists. This period also witnessed the increasing internationalization of HPM research with China today playing a leading role. In the early 2020s, interest in HPM research broadened from the L-to-X-band range to go as high as Ka-band. In addition, HPM amplifiers became of great interest. In recent developments, the US Department of Defense (DOD) released its list of top 6 priorities in November 2025. These are Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), Biomanufacturing, Contested Logistics Technologies, Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance, Scaled Directed Energy, and Scaled Hypersonics. This presentation will describe the University of New Mexico’s efforts pertaining to AI-Accelerated Directed Energy, focusing on Directed Energy Microwaves (HPM).

This talk traces the evolution of the Distributed Analytical Representation and Iterative Technique (DARIT)—an analytical framework developed over the past 15 years for the transient analysis of multiconductor transmission line (MTL) systems subjected to electromagnetic disturbances. In modern electronic platforms—from automotive and aerospace systems to very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits—MTL bundles often comprise dozens or even hundreds of densely packed interconnects. In such large-scale configurations, assessing the impact of transient electromagnetic interference becomes increasingly challenging, as conventional modeling approaches can become computationally expensive with growing conductor count.
DARIT offers an alternative perspective: by decoupling an N-conductor system into N independent single-line iterative processes, it achieves a significant reduction in computational complexity while preserving physical accuracy. The presentation will guide the audience through key milestones in the framework’s development, spanning its original formulation for frequency-domain crosstalk analysis, extension to radiated field coupling problems, successive algorithmic refinements for improved efficiency, and adaptation to time-domain analysis—enabling the handling of nonlinear terminal loads.
The talk will particularly highlight a recent advancement: DARIT-auto, which automates high-order analytical derivations for more iteration steps, addressing challenges in algebraic complexity that previously limited the framework’s applicability. Looking ahead, we will discuss ongoing efforts toward macromodel extraction and the integration of DARIT-based solvers into commercial EDA tools, with the goal of facilitating industry-ready EMC verification solutions.