Laser Weapons

[planters]

Why are all of these laser weapon demos "focused" on CW lasers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVB2b5Hbm04

I can nearly pull this off myself and if I was willing to use a CO2 laser, I could. This undoubtedly multi-million dollar system has to persist on the target for several seconds. I know..." we can supply your war fighters ( another PC term that infuriates me) with a system that is 10 times as powerful". But, if that DJ Phantom were even moderately protected with reflective and ablative coatings then the investment ratios would remain stupid.

Lasers are FAST and they give up much of this speed advantage when they operate as slow cookers. Pulsed lasers create impact and shock waves. This damages without requiring the target mass be turned to vapor. Also, the sensors will be more vulnerable to the brief, high fluence pulse. Furthermore, for targets at close range, the imaging system can operate at the speed of a computer and freeze the target to allow the pulse to crack off a rotor blade while it appears frozen in time.

[swamidog]

Why are all of these laser weapon demos "focused" on CW lasers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVB2b5Hbm04

I can nearly pull this off myself and if I was willing to use a CO2 laser, I could. This undoubtedly multi-million dollar system has to persist on the target for several seconds. I know..." we can supply your war fighters ( another PC term that infuriates me) with a system that is 10 times as powerful". But, if that DJ Phantom were even moderately protected with reflective and ablative coatings then the investment ratios would remain stupid.

Lasers are FAST and they give up much of this speed advantage when they operate as slow cookers. Pulsed lasers create impact and shock waves. This damages without requiring the target mass be turned to vapor. Also, the sensors will be more vulnerable to the brief, high fluence pulse. Furthermore, for targets at close range, the imaging system can operate at the speed of a computer and freeze the target to allow the pulse to crack off a rotor blade while it appears frozen in time.

agreed. and shooting down stationary plastic consumer quadcopters is neither meaningful or impressive.

[NobleGas]

This is an R&D project, one of the very few that the company announces publicly. The demo looks more impressive to the non-expert than a pulsed laser would, I believe that's why it was used. There's more to the demo than just the laser, there's the imager and tracker which are a not-inconsiderable part of the development task.

[mixedgas]

The Q-switched fiber laser setting next to the telescope ain't exactly CW... I'll grant you its quasi-cw, long-pulsed, and Q-Switched. It is a off the shelf laser, with a few month delivery time. It would be easy enough to combine in a "little something" with high peak power to initiate a faster drone kill.

A 25 mm, 50 joule, 1064 nm, 6 nS shot did very little to a unpainted 2x4 when I tried it. It did marginally more to a 2x4 painted with carbon black based spray paint. Of course if I could have focused it, the results would have been dramatic...


Kudos to them for filming the last flight path of a drone from a drone.

The key here is their adaptive optics in the telescope... Which the video is NOT focused upon...

A low rep rate 50 Joule 1064 nm pulse would barely burn that plastic, and would not be enough to achieve a high Pk...(Kill Probability)

For what it does, that might be a cost effective device for zapping small drones.

Steve

[planters]

I'm sure this is a Q switched fiber, but from the point of view of the slowly heating plastic it is effectively CW. I've fired nearly 100J from the dye at a few usec and it will tear up thin materials, but several kJ would probably punch deeply into the structure of the drone, or as I suggested would snap off a highly loaded rotor blade.

I had heard that "they" are looking at femtosecond fibers to allow for ablation effects. This would be a true "Disrupter", but I question whether the dispersion through a long path in the atmosphere wouldn't cause the pulse to spread.

Kudos to them for filming the last flight path of a drone from a drone.

Agreed.

There's more to the demo than just the laser, there's the imager and tracker which are a not-inconsiderable part of the development task.

I don't know. If you look into some of the free ware for object tracking on you tube and use a high speed machine vision camera from a company such as:

http://www.cognex.com/CognexInfo/Pre...e.aspx?id=9738

All you need is a robotic turret or a really big scanner pair.

The key here is their adaptive optics in the telescope

This is another argument for the pulsed laser. You read the atmosphere once and fire.

[White-Light]

Whereas I have to agree with Eric, and this is slightly off the laser topic, it's relevant in so far as questioning why they persist with laser weapons when railguns are now ready to be deployed. 100 mile range and projectile travelling at Mach 7. Not quite the speed of light, but fast enough for it not to matter with most targets and with instantaneous results on contact:




What's more, even amateurs are making some highly impressive portable railgun weapons, albeit the battery pack here is still a little large:




I do question though, whether a laser of similar destructive power could be made as small or even smaller. Also, a lesson to be learnt here on weapon safety ie do not shoot the cameraman in the neck! (luckily non fatally!)

[planters]

I agree here. The energy conversion efficiency for a rail gun should become extremely high if superconducting coils allowed for energy recycling. Chemical energy storage is still very attractive based on density and cost and this is why I think the hyper-velocity projectiles will only be a better alternative for fixed, energy rich platforms such as ships. This is also where free electron lasers become a realistic game changer as well.

I think generals and congressmen are just turned on by the thought of laser weapons. I'm not kidding here. They are realistic enough to question all these military contractors who put on these demos. And, the results at least all the ones I can find are unimpressive and feeble. Remember these are supposed to be weapons, not supped up laser projectors. But, nonetheless they would like to have laser weapons because it would be so cool.

I believe the answer to my original question lies in something Steve said. These fiber lasers can be easily modified from existing, commercially available industrial lasers from companies such as IPG Photonics. The contractors undoubtedly have the pointing and tracking systems available from other programs. They are not really developing laser weapons.

[NobleGas]

FYI, the original press release from MBDA (from press release document PR-laser-17062015-UK):

MBDA DEUTSCHLAND SUCCESSFULLY DEPLOYS LASER EFFECTOR AGAINST A MINI DRONE

In May 2015, MBDA Deutschland deployed a laser effector to acquire, track, and defeat a free-flying mini drone, the first time such technology has been used to this effect. The mini drone was destroyed within seconds of the start of the test which was carried out at MBDA Deutschland’s testing area in Schrobenhausen. The drone in question manoeuvred in the target area at a range of about 500m with the test proving the laser effector's capability to combat realistic targets with precision, speed and safety.
Commercial mini drones represent a new type of threat that is nearly impossible to counter with conventional effectors. In 2013 a mini drone crashed at a distance of only two meters from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other dignitaries during an election campaign event being held in Dresden, Germany. In France alone, more than 60 overflights by such craft over strategically significant locations have been reported since October 2014. Highly precise and scalable laser weapon systems could protect major events and critical infrastructures and close a current capability gap.
At the heart of MBDA Deutschland's technological approach is a multi-stage, highly precise tracking procedure and laser effector that bundles numerous laser sources into a single laser beam using the principle of geometric coupling. These processes make it possible to combat small, highly agile targets reliably with a single laser effector.
MBDA Deutschland has proven the functionality of its laser effectors in a range of tests. As far back as 2012, MBDA Deutschland demonstrated the full operational
sequence, from target acquisition to target engagement, at distances of up to 2.5 km against a dummy mortar.
In its system studies, MBDA Deutschland is examining laser-armament options for waterborne platforms and ground-based mobile laser effector concepts with high
power sources, 360-degree coverage and open system architecture for close and intermediate-range protection against micro UAVs and RAM (rocket and mortar)
targets.

[LaserCo]

lets see now..:
*Collecting information on large mirrored deflection systems.. (VRAD).
*Previous and ongoing research into extremely powerful laser systems.
*etc! etc!.
!!

" - Okay, who is this?
- This is Jesus, Kent. And you've been a very naughty boy!
All right, who is this?
- Cut the crap. You built a weapon.
- What?
What do you think a secret phase conjugate tracking system is for?
A big mirror makes a big beam. I guess it could be.
Where's the laser now?
I overheard Jerry mention something about a test on the 27th. But I don't know where. It's classified.
- What?
- Oh, nothing. I want you to think about what you've done, Kent.
And from now on... ...stop playing with yourself!

It is God."

Planters if you mysteriously vanish we can guess that homeland security (or something) "got you"

[Stuka]

I'll admit I'm no where near the level of laser-geekness that gets discussed on this forum, much less this thread.
Heck, I'm just a retired "war fighter" that does well to know which end of the scary looking contraption that the laser beam is supposed to shoot out of!


That said, seeing that a lot of the R&D for a lot of these programs happens nearby, and knowing a few folks that are directly involved (including some "drone killers" ), I'd hazard a guess that the true answers for many of these questions will * hopefully * never be openly discussed on this very open public forum.


One thing I am curious about -
What is so "PC" and infuriating about the term "war fighter"?
(And yes, I hear it a LOT - almost daily in my current line of work...)

That term was adopted by DoD to equally apply to all genders and races of persons that wear the military uniform, regardless of duty assignment or branch of service.
Given the sharing of technologies and roles between the services that we have today, "war fighter" seems to be a pretty good fit, especially when the term is used at the R & D level.

The services still do a pretty good job of differentiating between Sailors / Soldiers / Airmen / Marines, and I don't think the term "war fighter" will replace "combat veteran" anytime soon.