Watch: Is Laser Technology The Solution Against Aerial Threats?

Watch: Is Laser Technology The Solution Against Aerial Threats?

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The proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has highlighted a pressing concerns: How bring drones down from the air? Some people have tried shooting them, the Japanese have deployed a net-wielding anti-drone drone, and the Dutch are training eagles to snatch them out of the skies. Somehow, all these solutions seems lacking, but the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense (SMD) is working on a project to literally zap drones out of the skies.

SMD has a few projects in the works that deploy lasers against UAVs. The High Energy Mobile Laser Test Truck (HELMTT) can already shoot down a 10-25kg Class 2 UAV with its 10-kilowatt output, and the Army is working on a much more powerful 100-kilowatt version. What’s more, it’s mounted on a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, so it can do so almost everywhere.

The Solid State Laser Testbed (SSLT) take a different approach. Rather than focus on mobility, SSLT is aimed to maximise precision lethality. It’s being tested at the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility against a range of targets, including rockets, mortars, and yes, UAVs.

“If you want to kill a UAV, you have to know where to shoot,” says chief of the Air and Missile Defense Directorate at SMD, Richard DeFatta. “Just shooting a hole in the wing may not bring it down. You have to know which component to aim at.”

The private sector is not too far behind, however, with Boeing working on the mobile Compact Laser Weapon System (CLWS), which is made from off-the-shelf components. The 2-kilowatt CLWS already shot down a Class 1 UAV with a 10 second laser pulse in 2015, and we hear it’s only getting better.