Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lowery: AI-controlled battle systems will be necessary to fight drone swarms
“And in the case of this type of warfare, it's going to be necessary. The necessary decision to go forward with AI-controlled battle otherwise a man or a human in the loop won't work.”
Disclosure
Lowery: Epirus built automated targeting, but military rejects fully automatic mode
“The system now is in its infancy, but those hooks and those basically that fully automated mode is dialed into the way we architected it. So today, the military is not willing to go fully automatic”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: US Builds Only Dozens to One Hundred Air Missiles Monthly
“I think our entirety of our short range air missiles that we can build per month are in the dozens.
Like, I think in the tens or the, or maybe end up to like a hundred.
But just orders of magnitude less than what folks can build with consumer electronics.”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: China Can Probably Build 100,000 Small Drones Monthly
“If you talk group one and group two, China can build probably 100,000 group one and group two systems in a single month.”
Assertion Partly supported
Lowery: US Border Experiences Thousands of Drug Drone Incursions Without Interdiction
“They have somewhere along the lines of a couple thousand drone incursions over the border, and all we're doing today is just watching them fly on by. That's all we're doing. We're not doing a thing to them, and they're coming in, and we know they're carrying i…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lowery: The US is not the world leader in hypersonics
“There are areas like hypersonics and others where we're not the best in the world”
Insight
Lowery: Traditional defense primes invest minimal internal R&D outside DOD programs
“Everything they do is tethered to, kind of, direction from the DOD, and so they do very little, like, internal commercial innovation. There isn't a lot of internal research and development dollars spent on pure innovation that isn't tethered to a DARPA or some…”
Opinion
Lowery: Swarm attacks confound legacy defense prime electronic warfare systems
“We see the proliferation of swarms, swarms attacks, paralleled attacks, very paralleled attacks, which confounds basically the traditional defense prime electronic warfare.”
Assertion Open · timeframe Aug 2027
Lowery: Epirus system achieved 100 percent defeat rate in April Army trials
“We had zero targets that we did not take down. In other words, we were 100% effective on Every single scenario and every single target that they threw at us, we had an effect on”
Disclosure
Lowery: Epirus plans overseas front-line military deployment in fall 2024
“We intend to be in deployment mode come this fall. So in this fall, we'll have a final sort of test out of all the different bugs that we learned in the first limitations test, and then we'll send these things overseas to really, really, really be in the war a…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lowery: High-powered microwaves will definitely become a major space warfare tool
“Space is a it would be a, it's definitely a domain where high powered microwave will become a significant player in. In the near future.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Lowery: Epirus Will Enter a DoD Program of Record in 2025
“We are deploying to CENTCOM. If those deployments are successful, we will be palmed into a program or record In 20, 25.”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: Russia Can Build 500 Shahed Drones Per Month
“Russia, I think can build 500 shahads per month.
The group three shahad, 500 per month.”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: Next Generation Jammer deployed aboard USS Abraham Lincoln
“And oh, by the way, Next Generation Jammer just went on its first deployment with the USS Lincoln. So now it's being shipped overseas.”
Disclosure
Lowery: Epirus is developing microwave shields for Abrams tanks and airfields
“And we have activity in a wide spectrum Of different sorts of applications that range from a very sort of close range self protect, like the Abrams tanks, for example, ranging all the way up into the protect a whole entire airfield.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lowery: Epirus can build HPM systems effective at 10-kilometer ranges
“We're confident that we can build HPM that can have effects, very, very ubiquitous effects out at those ranges as well. Very, very confident.”
Disclosure
Lowery: Epirus testing microwave weapon against boat motors with Navy
“We're going out with the Navy and participating in what's called Antex. And Antex is a program that we're going to take one of our systems and put a whole bunch of different outboard boat motors out in the water and see how far and how quickly and how effectiv…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lowery: HPM-equipped Roadrunner could take down 10 drones per flight and recover
“So even though, ah, HPM systems are relatively expensive compared to a 30,000 dollar drone, you can actually take down maybe 10 drones a flight and then re-land and, ah, recover with a Roadrunner.”
Disclosure
Lowery: Epirus Faces FAA Authorization Delays Even on US Military Bases
“In the frequencies we work in, a lot of those frequencies are run by the FAA. And so the FAA has to give us permission to radiate big radiation at those frequencies, and we've run into problems Domestically, even on bases, even on military bases, being able to…”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: Only single-digit billions of DoD budget are flexibly reprogrammable
“What people don't say that when you boil it down to what actually is reprogrammable, it's a tiny fraction of that. It's like, I think the army has maybe a hundred and fifty million, a billion, I'm sorry, a hundred and fifty billion dollars or less to do anythi…”
Opinion
Lowery: US Department of Defense advanced electronics maintain unmatched lead
“The DOD and what we have built from an advanced electronics perspective is still eye-wateringly advanced. We still crush our enemies on our lead and our ability to maintain that lead, engineering-wise.”
Assertion Contradicted
Lowery: FPV drones require direct impact, making short-range microwave defenses effective
“What happens is, is a first person viewer drone with what they call a contact charge needs to drive that first person view drone all the way into impact. Cause how the contact charge works is it hits the armor And then a little spike shoots through the armor, …”
Assertion Supported
Lowery: Epirus delivered four systems to Army in 15 months
“So when the army gave us a contract, they said, see if we can deliver these in a couple years, two and a, it was a two and a half years actually. We delivered four systems in 15 months. I mean, just unheard of. 15 months, four full systems to the Army.”
