Israel has once again moved to the front of the global race to solve one of the modern battlefield’s hardest problems: how to knock cheap, swarming drones out of the sky without spending a fortune in the process. A new Israeli defense startup called Esh-Tech has unveiled a pulsed laser system named DroneLight that it says can destroy hostile drones in one to two seconds, draws only 4 kilowatts of power, mounts on a standard armored vehicle, and costs three to four times less than the laser and microwave systems already on the market. The company plans to put the weapon on public display at the Eurosatory defense exposition in Paris this month, according to Breaking Defense, which first reported the details in an interview with the firm’s chief executive.
For a country that has spent the past several years absorbing relentless drone attacks from Hezbollah in the north, Iranian-backed militias across the region, and Hamas remnants in Gaza, the arrival of an affordable, scalable hard-kill laser is more than a product launch. It is a potential turning point in the economics of air defense, an arena where Israel has consistently outpaced larger and wealthier militaries by pairing engineering ingenuity with battlefield urgency.
Why the Drone Problem Demanded a New Answer
The core challenge of counter-drone warfare is cost. A single small quadcopter rigged with explosives can cost a few hundred dollars, yet the interceptor missiles traditionally used to shoot such threats down can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. When an adversary launches dozens of drones at once, the defender bleeds money even when it wins every engagement. Israel understood this asymmetry earlier and more painfully than most, having watched Hezbollah deploy drones with ranges of up to 30 kilometers against both military positions and civilian communities.
Esh-Tech’s leadership set out from the beginning to attack this exact problem. “From day one, we tried to find a solution to counter UAVs, primarily small drones. We understood this would be the next threat,” chief executive Erex Riahi told Breaking Defense. The company concluded that soft-kill radio frequency jamming, while useful, was being steadily outpaced as drones grew more autonomous and resistant to electronic interference. The team chose instead to bet on hard-kill, meaning physically destroying the drone rather than disrupting its signal. “We saw that soft-kill RF solutions were constantly evolving, and with the rise of fiber optics we understood we needed hard-kill capabilities, so we bet on hard-kill to destroy drones,” Riahi said.
That decision reflects a broader strategic clarity that has defined Israel’s defense sector. Rather than chasing incremental upgrades to existing approaches, Israeli engineers repeatedly reframe the underlying problem and build toward the threat they expect to face next, not merely the one in front of them today.
How DroneLight Works
The heart of DroneLight is a pulsed laser architecture, a meaningful departure from the continuous-wave lasers that dominate the field. Conventional laser weapons work by holding a sustained beam on a target until accumulated heat burns through it, a process that can require 10 to 15 seconds of uninterrupted contact. That dwell time is a serious operational limitation when a swarm is inbound and every second counts.
Esh-Tech’s pulsed approach concentrates energy into short, intense bursts that ablate material almost instantly. Riahi described the effect vividly: “It’s like shooting, making holes in the target like a bullet, but with light. Nothing goes to the ground, there are no munitions limitations. We do five pulses per second and create multiple holes in a drone, which allows us to kill it efficiently.” Because the system fires light rather than physical ammunition, it never runs out of magazines and leaves no falling debris or unexploded ordnance, an important safety advantage when defending populated areas. The company says DroneLight works against both plastic and metal drone bodies.
The power efficiency is striking. DroneLight runs on roughly 4 kilowatts, compared with the 10 kilowatts consumed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ LiteBeam laser. Lower power draw means the system can ride on a vehicle and move with maneuvering forces rather than tethering troops to a heavy, power-hungry generator. “It’s a game changer. It’s smaller, uses only 4kWh, can be connected to a vehicle, and is three to four times less expensive than current laser or microwave systems,” Riahi said.
The company has also tackled one of the oldest weaknesses of directed-energy weapons: the atmosphere. Heat, humidity, dust, and turbulence all degrade a laser’s reach, and effective range can collapse during the middle of the day. Esh-Tech says it developed a method to identify brief windows in the atmosphere, lasting as little as 0.01 seconds, when conditions improve enough to fire at maximum effect. Exploiting these windows can extend range by 50 to 100 percent, according to Riahi. “Even in good conditions, especially in the middle of the day, one kilometer range can drop significantly because of atmospheric effects,” he noted, underscoring why the timing technology matters.
A Mobile Dome Rather Than a Fixed Fortress
Esh-Tech’s design philosophy is to create what Riahi called a protective dome that travels with forces and shields critical infrastructure, rather than a massive static installation. The system is engineered for 360-degree coverage with a defensive radius of roughly one kilometer, and the company expects it to neutralize up to 30 targets per minute, a rate built specifically to defeat swarms rather than single drones. Mounted on a tracked armored vehicle, in the displayed configuration a variant of FFG’s PMMC G5, DroneLight can advance alongside combat units and provide overhead protection wherever they go.
This mobility addresses a genuine gap in current air defense. Larger directed-energy systems often weigh tons and demand substantial power, confining them to fixed sites. A lightweight, vehicle-borne laser that maneuvers with frontline troops gives commanders flexibility that bulkier systems cannot match, particularly in the kind of multi-front conflict Israel has had to manage.
The capability is not merely theoretical. Esh-Tech tested DroneLight on a vehicle inside Israel last year, where the company says it destroyed 20 drones in trials. Riahi told Breaking Defense that the first operational system is on track to be ready in October, an aggressive timeline that reflects the urgency Israeli developers bring to fielding solutions quickly.
From Startup to Scale
Esh-Tech is thinking well beyond a single prototype. Riahi said the company expects to begin building dozens of systems in early 2027 before scaling to hundreds of units per year. The firm is targeting customers in the United States and Europe, both of which face their own escalating drone threats and have watched the war in Ukraine demonstrate how decisively cheap drones can reshape a battlefield. “Our plan is to sell hundreds and work closely with customers to provide a complete solution,” Riahi said.
Crucially, Esh-Tech is cooperating with the Israel Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, known as MAFAT, to potentially supply the system for Israel’s own needs. That partnership reflects the tight integration between Israel’s private defense innovators and its national security establishment, a relationship that has repeatedly turned promising prototypes into deployed capabilities faster than in most other countries.
The motivation behind the work is also deeply personal for the company’s leadership, a reminder that Israel’s defense industry is built by people directly invested in the safety of their own families and communities. “I have children in combat units, and it is important to find a solution to this threat,” Riahi said.
Where DroneLight Fits in Israel’s Defense Ecosystem
DroneLight does not arrive in a vacuum. It joins a layered Israeli defense architecture that already spans interceptor missiles, radar networks, and a growing family of directed-energy and counter-drone tools. Rafael’s higher-powered LiteBeam and the broader Iron Beam laser program represent the heavy end of the directed-energy spectrum, while systems from established primes address naval and area defense. Israel’s defense industry continues to field complementary platforms, as seen in IAI’s Diamond naval combat system for frigates and in the country’s mature air force drone and UAV programs.
An affordable, mobile, vehicle-mounted laser fills a distinct niche within that ecosystem: protecting maneuvering ground forces and dispersed infrastructure from the low-cost, high-volume drone threat that has proven so persistent. The pressure to solve this problem has been acute, as seen in the way Israel has had to expand ground operations in southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah drone launch sites farther from Israeli communities. A weapon that can blunt those attacks affordably, and at scale, could meaningfully shift the cost calculus back in Israel’s favor.
For Western militaries watching from the sidelines, the appeal is obvious. Drone swarms are no longer a niche concern but a defining feature of contemporary warfare, and the side that can defend against them cheaply holds an enormous advantage. Israel, as it has so often before, is offering the world a battle-informed answer.
