There's still a lot of blue sky in Boeing's plans for directed-energy weapons like the Laser Avenger.
(Credit: Boeing)Updated 2:40 p.m. with details on how the laser damaged the UAV and on the Laser Avenger's targeting system.
Boeing is seeing a glimmer of progress in its work toward fielding laser weapons.
The defense industry giant on Monday said tests of its Laser Avenger system in December marked "the first time a combat vehicle has used a laser to shoot down a UAV," or unmanned aerial vehicle. In the testing, the Humvee-mounted Laser Avenger located and tracked three small UAVs in flight over the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and knocked one of the drone aircraft out of the sky.
Boeing didn't go into much detail about the shoot-down. In response to a query by CNET News, it did say this much about the strike by the the kilowatt-class laser: "A hole was burned in a critical flight control element of the UAV, rendering the aircraft unflyable."
While decades of Hollywood imagery may conjure up a vision of a target disintegrating in a sparkle of light, the actual workings of the laser beam are probably more prosaic. For instance, the beam from Boeing's much, much larger Airborne Laser, which is intended to disable long-range missiles in flight, uses heat to create a weak spot on the skin of the missile, causing it to rupture in flight. Boeing hopes to conduct the first aerial shoot-down test with the much-delayed 747-based Airborne Laser later this year.
In tests in 2007, the Laser Avenger "neutralized" improvised explosive devices (IEDs) like those that have been a deadly threat in Iraq, along with other unexploded munitions.
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(Credit:
Popular Mechanics)
Boeing has rolled out the marketing for its laser-equipped Humvee by zapping five IED-like targets on a test range at Alabama's Redstone Arsenal (PDF) in what it called "the company's ability to rapidly respond to warfighters' needs."
Dubbed the "Laser Avenger," the unit consists of a 1-kilowatt solid-state laser mounted on an air-defense Humvee. It works by "shooting an invisible beam just a few centimeters in diameter and 20 times hotter than an electric stovetop" into the offending munition until it combusts internally. It then just "pops" or "fizzles" in a low-level detonation.
"Boeing's investment strategy is to move some of its new directed energy weapon systems into field demonstrations, and Laser Avenger is the first one we're rolling out," Boeing's Gary Fitzmire said in a press release.
This application is hardly new. Ten years ago an ordnance disposal unit at Nellis Air Force Base was using an APC-mounted 2KW YAG laser to nix hundreds of unexploded cluster bombs on its bombing range.
In 2003, the U.S. Army deployed a ZEUS-HLONS (HMMWV Laser Ordnance Neutralization System) to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where it popped more than 200 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in six months. It even set a record by "negating" more than 50 UXOs in less than two hours.
While this and other laser units allow EOD teams to stand off at a safe distance and dispose of an IED, they still need to find it. And when it comes to that, the Avenger is just another target on the road.
The company hedged its bets by cutting up some UAVs during the demonstration in a nod to the anti-aircraft market. But as you see by the video, it's not breaking any ground there either.
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