By Kris Osborn, Warrior
(Washington DC) More than ten years ago, the US Navy armed the USS Ponce with the cutting edge and promising Laser Weapons System (LAWs), a first of its kind ship-integrated, scalable laser weapon able to incinerate drones, helicopters, surface ships and even fixed-wing targets from the deck.
Since this time, the Army, Navy and Air Force have all pioneered a wide range of laser applications intended to bring Directed Energy laser attack weapons to modern combat. As low cost, adjustable weapons able to attack as the speed of light, lasers introduce both new attack possibilities, ISR applications and new combat Concepts of Operation. The Army has armed a Stryker with its C-UAS DE Stryker laser weapon and integrated its High Energy Laser onto a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The US Navy is now arming its Destroyers with the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS), and the Air Force Research Lab has for many years been testing and experimenting with ground-tests for aircraft mounted laser systems with the intention of arming F-35, F-22s or even F-47s with laser weapons.
Laser on ISV
Now the Army is arming small, on-the-move Infantry Squad Vehicles with mobile lasers to track and destroy drones. The Army has recently put AV (formerly AeroVironment) on contract to arm ISVs with its Army Multi-Purpose High-Energy Laser
"If you look at the history of Directed Energy, it dates back decades. A lot of science and tech experimentation....but we're finally at the forefront of fielding DE weapons systems for the counter UAS fight. And so a lot of those lessons learned from some of those large programs, like you mentioned that went on HEMETs, like HEL and others, have spiraled into making these systems like AMPEL or Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser, a massive success. And so that's integrated onto the ISV as well as onto the JLTV and fixed site instantiation," John Garrity, Vice President of Directed Energy, AV, told Warrior in an interview.
The challenge with laser weapons has always been to engineer mobile expeditionary sources of power small enough to integrate onto drones, lightweight vehicles, fighter jets and other host platforms less able to accommodate such large power requirements. Arms ships and other larger platforms with lasers has naturally proved much easier, given that there is more SWAP, Size Weight and Power capability to integrate the larger form factors necessary to support laser weapons. Since this time, the military services and its industry partners have been working intensely to miniaturize laser weapons power support systems sufficient to arm smaller, more mobile and more expeditionary platforms such as ISVs.
Detecting Swarms
Many are likely to wonder if vehicle mounted laser systems, or perhaps even soldier carried lasers someday, will not only be able to destroy point-to-point larger platforms but potentially counter swarms of small drones. This, Garrity explained, is something which requires speed, precision and rapid target acquisition.
"In theory, if you can target all of them, maybe you can get to all of them. Working with how those systems are deployed, whether it be for protecting a forward operating base or other critical assets, (8:52) looking at how those CONOPS are set up, so you're maximizing the lethality of the laser weapon system, and really focusing on not only on counter ISR drone missions today... but scaling into where those swarms may be in the future, kind of like what we again see in Europe today," Garrity said.
"Here at AV, we actually have a software product that is interconnected between all our other different products that we're delivering called AV Pinpoint, and a part of our AV HALO software architecture that allows us to really get after the incredibly challenging task of acquiring targets, tracking them in clutter, and engaging them really quickly," Garrity said.
"We're putting these systems through the paces for all scenarios of drone warfare," Garrity said.
