The Military Wants Lasers To Counter Drones
This post is also available in: 
עברית (Hebrew)
The military is still looking for ways to handle possible threats arising from the large number of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) flying low altitude, including the ones that can carry bombs. Recently several flights in center U.S. airports had to deal with drones hovering around the airplanes’ path, and the future forecasts don’t look very encouraging, as more UAVs are being privately purchased every day and are expected to be filling the skies in coming years.
David DeYoung, director of Boeing’s Laser and Electro-Optical Systems, says that there are currently no existing ways to handle drones, but the use of lasers could be an effective solution, since lasers themselves are getting to be much cheaper and common.
Boeing has recently demonstrated a two-kilowatt laser shooting at a stationary target and successfully igniting it, and has mentioned that the military has access to 10-kilowatt lasers. A laser system can be used for coping with the UAV threat, by, for instance, installing the weapon at the edge of an airport to hit any trespassing aerial vehicle. In fact, these systems are getting to be so compact that they could be installed on the back of a jeep or a truck.
Lasers also have a high level of accuracy and can target specific parts of a aerial vehicle in order to shoot only the wing, for example. Furthermore, they can shoot down UAVs that are out of the soldiers’ visual range and have varying degrees of power, depending on the mission at hand. Another advantage is the low cost of using lasers. DeYoung says that once you own the laser, is cost comes down the electic use needed to operate it.
In conclusion, a strategy must be come up with that will lead to a detering solution for UAV operators breaking the law. It’s important to establish order into the drone jungle that we are witnessing these days, before one of them crash into a plane and put our lives in danger.
