Israel Aerospace Systems HARPY loitering munition

Overview:

The Harpy is an anti-radiation loitering munition described by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) as ‘an all-weather day/night “Fire and Forget” autonomous weapon, launched from a ground vehicle behind the battle zone.’^[1]Israel Aerospace Industries, Harpy: autonomous weapon for all weather’, https://www.iai.co.il/p/harpy The Harpy is ‘Programmed before launch to perform autonomous flight to a pre-defined “Loitering Area”, in which they loiter and search for radiating targets.’ IAI states that ‘the HARPY loitering munition (LM) detects, attacks and destroys enemy radar emitters, hitting them with high hit accuracy’, and that the ‘HARPY effectively suppresses hostile SAM and radar sites for long durations, loitering above enemy territory for hours.’

The launching process is controlled from the GCS and the HARPY LM is stored, transported, deployed and launched from a canister mounted on a ground-based launcher normally mounted on trucks.

Autonomy:

IAI describes the HARPY as ‘fully autonomous’. Reports state that the HARPY ‘performs autonomous flight to a pre-defined “Loitering Area”, in which they orbit while searching for radiating targets. The “signature” of these targets is compared with a preprogrammed database of known air defense systems and, once the target is confirmed, Harpy begins the dive that will lead to the accurate destruction of the radar system. The high precision and the warhead allow the total destruction of the radar target. This way, Harpy can effectively perform SEAD/DEAD missions suppressing hostile air defenses for hours while autonomously searching, identifying, acquiring, attacking and destroying enemy radar emitting threats’. It is also reported that ‘f the enemy radar is turned off and does not emit signals, the attack is automatically aborted’.^[2]The Aviationist, Let’s Talk About The Israel Air Industries Loitering Munitions And What They’re Capable Of’, https://theaviationist.com/2022/01/07/iai-loitering-munitions/