How Laser Tech Is Moving Toward Combat Deployment

Graham Warwick

Boost-Phase Missile Defense

Missile Defense Agency

Under its Low-Power Laser Demonstrator (LPLD) program, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to install a multikilowatt laser on a high-altitude unmanned aircraft to validate the acquisition, tracking and engagement of a boost-phase ballistic missile using a high-energy laser. Two candidate MDA-funded 30-kW lasers will be offered for the demo: MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Fiber Combined Laser and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Diode-Pumped Alkali Laser.

 

Combat Aircraft Self-Protection

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is to provide a high-power laser to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory for flight-testing on a fighter by 2021 under its Self-protect High-Energy Laser Demonstrator (Shield) program to defend aircraft from air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. Building on previous 30- and 60-kW fiber lasers using special beam combining, Lockheed’s compact laser will be integrated with a Northrop Grumman beam-control system and installed in a Boeing-supplied pod.

Special Operations

Raytheon

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) plans to flight-test a low-kilowatt laser on
a Lockheed Martin AC-130J gunship in 2018, with the goal of fielding a high-energy
strike weapon by the end of the decade. A podded Raytheon high-energy laser was fired
from a Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter at a ground target in September 2017, in a
test supported by SOCOM.

 

Ship Defense

MBDA

Following deployment of the 30-kW Laser Weapon System prototype on a ship in the Persian Gulf in December 2014-September 2017, to counter UAVs and fast boats, the U.S. Navy chose Northrop Grumman to build the 150-kW Laser Weapon System Demonstrator for at-sea testing by 2018. Helios, a follow-on program to accelerate fielding of a 60-150-kW laser (with optical dazzler to blind UAV sensors) is to deliver test units in 2020 for land and sea trials. UK Dragonfire—a consortium including Qinetiq, Leonardo, GKN and BAE Systems—will demo the 50-kW laser in 2019.

Force Protection

U.S. ARMY

After tests at 10 kW, the U.S. Army will trial its High-Energy Laser Mobile Test Truck with a 60-kW Lockheed Martin fiber laser in 2018 and a 100-kW laser in 2022, to assess its potential for the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2–Intercept program to counter rockets, artillery, mortars and UAVs. A short-range air defense system based on the Stryker armored vehicle, the Mobile High-Energy Laser is to be tested at 50 kW in 2021, following trials at 5 and 10 kW in 2017. The Office of Naval Research plans Directed Energy On-the-Move firings by 2022 of a 30-kW Raytheon planar waveguide laser mounted on a Humvee for potential transition to the U.S. Marine Corps.

 

After decades of experimentation, directed-energy weapons development is moving into field-testing of solid-state high-energy laser systems packaged to fit on combat aircraft, ships and vehicles, paving the way for operational deployment early in the next decade.

 
Graham Warwick

Graham leads Aviation Week's coverage of technology, focusing on engineering and technology across the aerospace industry, with a special focus on identifying technologies of strategic importance to aviation, aerospace and defense.

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