HKOI · HYPER KINETIC OBSCURANT INTERCEPTOR
Cheap threats deserve a cheap answer.
Drones and guided missiles keep getting cheaper. The interceptors used against them have not. HKOI is a gun-launched countermeasure that defeats drones and guided missiles from existing medium-caliber platforms, at a fraction of the cost per engagement of a missile interceptor.
ATGM DEFEATED 00 UAS DEFEATED 00 LEAKERS 00
ATGM UAS INTERCEPT
CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION · NOT TO SCALE
MIXED THREATS
MISSILE SALVO
DRONE SWARM
Engagement sequence
01 · DETECT Track the threat The vehicle's sensors pick up an incoming missile or drone and start tracking it.
02 · ENGAGE Fire on its path While the threat is still in the engagement zone, the gun puts HKOI rounds on its line of approach.
03 · DEFEAT Stop it outside the keep-out zone The threat is defeated before it gets close enough to hurt the vehicle. The gun moves to the next one.
Where HKOI fits
LONG RANGE
HKOI ZONE
KEEP-OUT
Long-range air defense Missile interceptors built for aircraft and large threats. Too costly to spend on a cheap drone.
HKOI engagement zone Where HKOI meets incoming missiles and drones, using rounds from the vehicle's own gun.
Keep-out zone The space around the vehicle that no threat should reach. HKOI stops threats before they get there.
Anatomy of an engagement
DETECTION
ENGAGEMENT ZONE
KEEP-OUT
01 DETECT 02 TRACK 03 FIRE 04 DEFEAT
Sensors pick it up Path is predicted Rounds sent to meet it Stopped short
DISTANCE TO VEHICLE → · ILLUSTRATIVE
Overtake & Bloom · one engagement, start to finish
A beam-riding missile steers by watching a laser beam from its launcher with a sensor in its tail. HKOI doesn't try to hit the missile. It sends a round past the missile and blooms an obscurant cloud behind it, between the missile and the launcher. The missile loses the beam, loses its guidance and drifts off course. The cloud is far from the vehicle, so the vehicle's own sensors stay clear.
01 LAUNCH T+0.0 S
CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION · NOT TO SCALE · TIMES ILLUSTRATIVE
ATGM · OVERTAKE & BLOOM
DRONE · AIRBURST
000 090 180 270
Any bearing The turret turns to meet threats wherever they come from, front, flank or rear.
1 2 3
Threat after threat A belt-fed gun works through a swarm one target at a time, without reloading between shots.
Why it matters
Priced to the threat Defeats low-cost threats without spending high-cost interceptors.
Belt-fed depth Built for sustained engagements and swarms, not a handful of shots.
Fielded hardware Designed around guns already in service to shorten the path to the warfighter.
Threat set
FPV drones Fast, cheap and flown straight into the target by a remote pilot.
Small UAS Scouts and bomb-droppers that hover overhead and spot for other weapons.
Loitering munitions Circle an area until they find a target, then dive onto it.
Beam-riding ATGMs Anti-tank missiles that ride a laser beam from the launcher to the vehicle.
Technology readiness
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
NOW TRL 3 · analytical proof of concept in simulationNEXT TRL 4 · component validation in the lab
Questions we get
THE SYSTEM
What does HKOI stand for? Hyper Kinetic Obscurant Interceptor. It's a gun-launched countermeasure that defeats incoming drones and guided missiles before they reach the vehicle.
Does HKOI need a new gun? No. HKOI is designed around medium-caliber guns that are already in service, so it adds protection without adding a new weapon to the vehicle.
Which threats is it built for? FPV drones, small drones, loitering munitions and beam-riding anti-tank missiles. These are the cheap, plentiful threats that now cause much of the damage to armored vehicles.
How is it different from an active protection system? A typical hard-kill active protection system (APS) carries a few ready countermeasures and intercepts very close to the vehicle. HKOI engages farther out, with a belt-fed magazine, at a fraction of the cost per shot. The two can work together, with HKOI thinning out threats before an APS has to act. See the comparison .
IN THE FIELD
Can it handle a swarm? That's the point of a belt-fed design. A missile-based defense carries a few shots. A gun can keep engaging threat after threat at a fraction of the cost.
Can it engage threats from any direction? The design goal is full coverage around the vehicle. The turret turns to meet a threat from the front, flank or rear.
Does it work at night or in bad weather? HKOI is designed to work with the vehicle's own sensors and fire control. How it performs across light, weather and terrain conditions is part of upcoming testing.
What about soldiers near the vehicle? Defeating threats farther from the vehicle is one of HKOI's goals, since it keeps the intercept away from the crew and the troops around it. Safety for nearby troops will be evaluated in testing.
WORKING WITH US
How mature is HKOI? HKOI is at Technology Readiness Level 3. Its critical functions are shown in simulation. Lab validation of key components is the next step.
Is it available now? Not yet. HKOI is in development. We're looking for government and industry partners to take it through testing.
What will it cost? Pricing isn't public. The design goal is a cost per engagement that is a small fraction of a missile interceptor's.
Can I see the technical details? Technical briefings are available to qualified government and industry partners under NDA. HKOI technical data is handled under U.S. export-control rules. Get in touch to set one up.
PATENT PENDING BUILT IN AUSTIN, TEXAS
MISSION
If you want peace, prepare for war.
SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM
The surest way to keep the peace is to make an attack too costly to attempt. We build defenses that let the crews on the front line come home.
Same swarm · standard APS vs HKOI
ILLUSTRATIVE · NOT TO SCALE
A standard active protection system waits until a threat is almost on top of the vehicle, and it carries only a few shots. Once those are gone, the rest of the swarm gets through. HKOI meets threats farther out and keeps firing.
Where each one stops the threat
Standard APS HKOI
INTERCEPT CLOSE TO VEHICLE AND TROOPS
INTERCEPT AT STANDOFF
TROOPS
TROOPS
Key differences
Standard APS HKOI
Where it intercepts Very close to the vehicle Farther out, in a wider engagement zone Shots ready A handful of countermeasures Belt-fed, many rounds Reloading Often done by hand, outside the vehicle Fed from the gun's ammunition supply Cost per shot High A small fraction Swarms Runs out partway through Keeps engaging Nearby troops Intercepts happen within meters of them Intercepts happen farther away New hardware Dedicated launchers and sensors Built around the vehicle's existing gun
General comparison with typical hard-kill APS designs. Specific systems differ. HKOI can also work alongside an APS as an outer layer.
Magazine depth
STANDARD APS · READY SHOTS HKOI · BELT-FED
Then it's empty.
And it keeps going, at a fraction of the cost per shot.
ILLUSTRATIVE · ACTUAL COUNTS VARY BY SYSTEM
The cost gap
The real gap is roughly a thousand to one, too wide to draw. A defender who spends a thousand times more per shot runs out first.
Who we protect
Vehicle crews The soldiers inside armored vehicles, who face drones and anti-tank missiles every day.
Units on the move Convoys and maneuver units that can't stop to set up a fixed air defense site.
Forward positions The troops nearby who share the same sky and the same threats.
What we hold to
Cost parity A defense should cost about what the threat costs, so defenders can afford to keep shooting.
Magazine depth Swarms are the problem now. Answers must last for dozens of engagements.
Use what's fielded Building on hardware the Army already has gets protection to crews years sooner.
Bring crews home Every decision is measured against the people inside the vehicle.
PAX
Why the name
Pax is Latin for peace. It is also the title of the founder's favorite book, a story about what war costs the ones caught in it.
KILL CHAIN
Detect. Track. Decide. Engage.
Before HKOI fires a single round, it has to answer three questions: is something coming, where is it coming from, and exactly when will it be where. Two of HKOI's own sensors answer them together, a laser warning system and a Doppler radar. Fire control turns those answers into one well-timed shot.
01 Detect Laser warning feels the beam. Radar hears the echo.
02 Track Radar puts a range gate on the threat and follows only it.
03 Decide Classify the threat, predict its path, check the shot window.
04 Engage Fire inside the window: airburst for drones, overtake and bloom for missiles.
05 Assess Radar watches the result and fires again if it has to.
Sensor lab · drag the threat, switch sensors off
ATGM
FPV DRONE
SCOUT DRONE
RPG
LASER WARNING
DOPPLER RADAR
ILLUSTRATIVE · LOG RANGE SCALE · DRAG THE THREAT
READY Press play to watch HKOI work the threat.
LASER WARNING —
DOPPLER RADAR —
RANGE GATE —
TRACK —
SHOT WINDOW —
DECISION —
DETECT TRACK DECIDE ENGAGE ASSESS All ranges, speeds and timings in this lab are illustrative, chosen to show how the pieces fit together. They are not performance figures.
01 · Laser warning: where is it coming from?
A beam-riding missile like the Kornet flies down a laser beam that its crew keeps pointed at the tank. Laser rangefinders and designators work the same way: before the shot, someone has to put light on the target. That light is the first thing HKOI notices.
HKOI carries four laser warning heads, one on each corner of the turret. Each head watches roughly a quarter of the horizon, and their views overlap. When a beam hits the tank, the head facing it gets a strong signal and its neighbor gets a weaker one. Comparing the two gives the bearing, and the beam's pulse pattern tells what kind of laser it is.
DRAG THE BEAM AROUND THE TANK The catch: laser warning tells HKOI where a beam comes from, never how far away the launcher is or how fast the missile is closing. It also sees nothing that doesn't use a laser, like drones or an RPG. That's what the radar is for.
02 · Doppler radar: how far, and how fast?
Four fixed radar panels around the HKOI turret send out short bursts of radio waves and listen for echoes. Two numbers come from every echo:
Range from delay range = speed of light × delay ÷ 2 The echo makes a round trip, so half the travel time gives the distance. An object 1.2 km out answers in about 8 microseconds.
Speed from shift shift = 2 × closing speed ÷ wavelength Something moving toward the radar squeezes the echo to a higher frequency. The faster it closes, the bigger the shift.
WAVE SQUEEZE EXAGGERATED · 3 CM WAVELENGTH, ILLUSTRATIVE That shift is how the radar ignores the ground. Hills, buildings and trees send back strong echoes, but they aren't moving, so their echoes come back unshifted and the clutter filter throws them away. A missile closing at 240 m/s shifts its echo by about 16 kHz and stands out clearly. Drones move slower, but their spinning rotors add a fast flicker to the echo, called micro-Doppler, that marks them as drones and not birds.
03 · Shot gate: when exactly to fire?
Once the radar finds the threat, it stops listening to everything else. A range gate is a narrow listening window placed around where the next echo should arrive. Echoes from outside the window are ignored, so the track stays locked even with clutter, other vehicles and other threats around. The gate slides inward with the missile, update after update.
The track feeds fire control, which predicts where the missile will be. Beam-riders fly straight down the beam, which makes them very predictable. HKOI's round has to pass the missile and bloom behind it while both are inside the HKOI zone, between 3,500 and 800 meters. The span of firing times that makes that work is the shot window .
ILLUSTRATIVE NUMBERS Fire at T+6.0 S
Fire too early and the round passes the missile beyond 3,500 meters. Fire too late and the pass happens inside 800 meters, too close for a clean bloom. HKOI waits for the window, then fires.
04 · Putting it together
LASER WARNING BEARING · LASER TYPE INSTANT · NO RANGE
DOPPLER RADAR RANGE · SPEED · ANGLE ROTOR SIGNATURE
FUSED TRACK ONE THREAT
CLASSIFY WHAT IS IT
FIRE CONTROL SHOT WINDOW
HKOI FIRES
ASSESS ↺
BOTH SENSORS AGREE → HIGH CONFIDENCE, FAST DECISION
Laser warning Doppler radar
Direction Yes, the bearing of the beam Yes Range No Yes, from echo delay Closing speed No Yes, from Doppler shift Laser-guided missiles Sees the beam before and during the shot Sees the missile once it flies Drones and RPGs Can't see them Yes, rotor flicker marks drones Gives away the tank No, it only listens Emits, so it works in short bursts
Neither sensor is enough alone. Laser warning is instant and silent but only gives a direction. Radar gives range and speed and sees drones, but it does better when it knows where to look. Together, laser warning points the radar, the radar builds the track, and fire control knows when and where the threat will be before it pulls the trigger. Switch either sensor off in the lab above to see the difference.
COMPANY
Built in Austin, Texas.
Pax Kinetics is a defense technology company developing affordable countermeasures for the drone and missile threats facing ground forces today.
TRL 3 Proof of concept in simulation
1 Patent pending
4 Threat classes targeted
360° Design coverage goal
What we're building
SIMULATION · ACTIVE
FIRE-CONTROL LOGIC
HKOI ROUND
VEHICLE INTEGRATION
TOP LAYER FIRST · EACH BUILDS ON THE ONE ABOVE
The HKOI stack Simulation proves the concept, fire-control logic decides when and where to shoot, the round does the work and integration puts it on the vehicle.
RAW TRACK
ESTIMATE
PREDICTED INTERCEPT
TIME →
Inside the simulation Our engagement model filters noisy sensor tracks, accounts for drag on the round, schedules shots and drives the turret, then predicts where to meet each threat.
Path to the field
Concept Simulation Lab validation Field test Fielded
TRL 1–2 · DONE TRL 3 · NOW TRL 4 · NEXT TRL 5–6 TRL 7–9
Leadership
Founder
Shawn Patches
Shawn invented HKOI and founded Pax Kinetics to take it from simulation to the field. He built the engagement simulation behind the concept, which models target tracking, ballistics and turret motion, and holds the provisional patent on the design.
HKOI INVENTOR JOHNS HOPKINS CTY CAPITOL CONGRESS FINALIST
Advisory board · forming
We're adding advisors with hands-on experience in the areas that will decide whether HKOI reaches the field.
OPEN SEAT Defense acquisition SBIR, OTA and program-office experience.
OPEN SEAT Armor & vehicle integration Ground combat vehicles and the crews who run them.
OPEN SEAT Ballistics & munitions Medium-caliber rounds, fuzing and test.
JOIN THE ADVISORY BOARD →
Milestones
JUL 2026 Provisional patent filed The HKOI design was filed with the USPTO.
2026 Alaska Defense Forum A one-page brief on HKOI was presented to defense leaders.
OCT 2026 Investor briefings HKOI was presented to investors and the Austin defense-tech community, including at Q-Branch.
OCT 2026 TRL 3 reached The engagement simulation shows the concept's critical functions analytically.
NEXT Company formation & SBIR Federal registration and a first SBIR Phase I proposal.
THEN Lab validation Moving from simulation to component testing, TRL 3 to TRL 4.
How we work
Simulate first Every idea is modeled and stress-tested in software before it costs a dollar of hardware.
Build on what's fielded We design around equipment crews already know, so adoption is a software and ammunition question.
Controlled by default Technical data stays under NDA and export-control rules. Public material stays at the concept level.
Crew-centered If it doesn't make the people inside the vehicle safer, we don't build it.
Headquarters
30°16′N 97°44′W
City Austin, Texas
Grid 30°16′N 97°44′W
Focus Ground vehicle protection
Funding & programs
Raising First round open We're raising a small first round to form the company and fund lab validation. Investors can reach out here .
Pursuing DoD SBIR Phase I Our first federal goal is an SBIR Phase I award to move HKOI from simulation into lab testing.
Exploring Army innovation pathways We're talking with people across the Army's innovation community about where HKOI fits best.
Build with us
Engineers in simulation, ballistics and embedded systems
If you want to work on hard problems that keep crews alive, we'd like to hear from you.
GET IN TOUCH
DISPATCHES
News from Pax Kinetics.
INTRODUCING PAX KINETICS HKOI BRIEFED AT Q-BRANCH, AUSTIN HKOI REACHES TRL 3 HKOI BRIEFED AT THE ALASKA DEFENSE FORUM PROVISIONAL PATENT FILED FOR HKOI
INTRODUCING PAX KINETICS HKOI BRIEFED AT Q-BRANCH, AUSTIN HKOI REACHES TRL 3 HKOI BRIEFED AT THE ALASKA DEFENSE FORUM PROVISIONAL PATENT FILED FOR HKOI
ALL
COMPANY
TECHNOLOGY
EVENTS
FEATURED · COMPANY
Introducing Pax Kinetics
HKOI now has a company behind it. Pax Kinetics will take the concept from simulation to lab validation, starting with federal registration and a first SBIR Phase I proposal. We're based in Austin and talking with program offices, investors and integrators now.
NOV 2026
OCT 29, 2026 EVENTS HKOI at Q-Branch, Austin We briefed HKOI at Q-Branch's Robotics Happy Hour, including an hour of Q&A with investors and engineers from Austin's defense-tech community.
OCT 2026 TECHNOLOGY HKOI reaches TRL 3 The engagement simulation now shows the concept's critical functions analytically. The next step is lab testing of key components.
2026 EVENTS HKOI briefed at the Alaska Defense Forum A one-page brief on HKOI was presented to defense leaders at the 2026 Alaska Defense Forum.
JUL 2026 TECHNOLOGY Provisional patent filed for HKOI The HKOI design, a gun-launched countermeasure for drones and guided missiles, was filed with the USPTO. HKOI is patent pending.
Press kit
Founded 2026
Headquarters Austin, Texas
Founder Shawn Patches
Focus Counter-drone & counter-missile
Boilerplate
Pax Kinetics is an Austin, Texas defense technology company building affordable, high-volume defense against drones and guided missiles. Its first system, HKOI (Hyper Kinetic Obscurant Interceptor), is a gun-launched countermeasure designed for medium-caliber guns already in service. HKOI is patent pending.
COPY BOILERPLATE Media: shawnpatches4@gmail.com
CONTACT
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CHANNEL OPEN · STANDING BY
PAX-01 · AUSTIN
Government Programs & labs Program offices, Army labs and SBIR or STTR topics. Capital Investors Defense and deep-tech investors interested in the raise. Industry Partners & press Integrators, suppliers, media and event organizers.
shawnpatches4@gmail.com
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What happens next
01 · READ We read every message Every serious inquiry gets read by the founder, not a filter.
02 · REPLY We reply directly You'll hear back from a person, with a clear next step.
03 · BRIEF Technical briefings under NDA Qualified government and industry partners can get a full technical briefing.