After many decades of hard work and dead-end, the dream of operational professional laser weapons is about to become a reality. So, what has changed is that the excessive systems have gone from clumsy pipe dreams to rigidity, miniatures and reliable weapons that can be adjusted even in the toughest conditions.
We recently had an in-depth interview with Dr. Rob Rob Afzal, Lockheed Martin Senior Fellow, Laser and Sensor Systems, where I pressed them on all things related to laser weapons and related filling military programs that go with it. While answering my questions, Dr. Af. Afzal made it clear how we suddenly arrived in an era where laser weapons would become widespread on the battlefield. In this first part of our two-part series with Lockheed’s directed energy guru, I want to share his revelation with you, as it is interesting in its own right.
Here, as he gave me a direct message, the same technological development has made possible the beginning of laser warfare, according to Dr. Afzal:
“If you think back, that the laser was invented around 1960. So, that begs the question, it’s 50 years – why aren’t laser weapons all over the place today? There are two reasons for that.
The first reason is that the initial application they envisioned for laser weapons is for strategic defense missions; Indeed, defending the homeland against incoming ballistic missiles is one of the most difficult – most difficult – missions out there. So, at first, it was extraordinarily difficult, but it developed many basic techniques and demonstrations that show that the laser weapon system can be put together, you can do editing, tracking, laser beam pointing, As well as delivering lethal laser beams to targets like boost-phase ballistic missiles on airborne laser programs. The point though was that those systems were basically just too big, literally. They were physically too large to be deployed in a tactical environment, on a truck or in an airplane, even in a ship, without taking up most of the ship.
USAF
The Abortion AL L-1 Airborne Laser is a 747 full of its chemical laser components. The program was canceled a decade ago, spending large sums of money and failing to meet operational requirements.
Although the systems were possible, the irony was that the laser technology was not yet there, to create a small enough, powerful enough laser, to be strategically compatible. Now, even the dangerous landscape began to change, and we moved from strategic defense to strategic defense. Threats are really evolving today. We are now talking about low-cost, low-capacity hazard swarms, such as armed UAVs or mortars or rocket barrages. Those systems are short range, and many systems … are not sophisticated; Which means traditionally cultured countermeasures, like jamming and redirecting and things like that, don’t work. As such, for example, there is no guide system on the mortar. So, there is nothing you can easily do to defend against mortar. And the timeline of a mortar shot is very short, so you need to react exceptionally quickly and be able to defend in a very short period of time.
Hence, the threatening landscape has evolved. And then in the technical space, there were two revolutions that really started to happen. The first was fiber-optic telecommunications, so I am concerned with why it is directed to RJA.
Suddenly, in the 90’s, billions and billions of dollars began to pour into the development of fiber – optic communications equipment – how to make optical fiber, how to stretch kilometers and kilometers from it, how to make, how to make. High-speed electronics, to be able to communicate, to send data down the fiber to semicircular diode lasers. The whole industrial structure for that capacity really began to build. Then the bubble burst in the early 2000’s and a number of companies that were in the space began exploring new markets to see if this fiber-optic, fiber-laser technology could actually reach hundreds of watts in optical power in terms of power size. What we found – we, the community – meant that you could make a whole bunch of industrial applications using fiber-laser technology and very cost-effective. What I mean by that is mainly cutting, welding and drilling. So, all of a sudden, all the sheet metal that is cut for household appliances and so forth, began to be cut by kilowatt type power level high-power fiber-lasers.
BJ / WikiCommons and Schreifler / WikiCommons
Fiber-optic cable and fiber-optic cabling are being installed in the city.
All the microelectronics and iPhones and so on, began to be drilled and scrubbed on the touch screen, and all this industrial space opened up, and the reason was that these fiber lasers were very efficient at converting electrical power into optical power. The quality of the beam that came out of the fiber-laser, i.e. the ability to focus the beam, to provide high-intensity space to do things like molten metal and drill holes, the quality of the beam was very high. So, all of a sudden, the industrial space really opened up and the development of high-power fiber-lasers really started.
It was particularly interesting, apart from the fact that the power emanating from the fiber-laser does not spread to the class of weapons, right? It is one thing to cut metal a centimeter away, it is another thing to cut a mortar two kilometers away. So, the innovation that changed the game in the last five years or so, Lockheed Martin was a real leader or This Leading this innovation, and innovation involves finding ways to measure fiber-lasers in the power of the class of weapons with high-power laser technologies for fiber-optic communications technologies and weapons industrial applications.
The way it is, instead of just building a single laser at 50 kW or 100 kW or something like that, we’re actually taking individual fiber-lasers and connecting the output of the beam to a single high-power beam, and we do that Using technology we call spectral beam combinations … Basically, what we did was we took something, if you are familiar with wavelength section multiplexing in telecommunications – how to break the spectrum that is available to you in many different laser-lines. And send all that light down the fiber to increase your communications bandwidth. So, all of a sudden, we took a large number of fiber-laser channels, all of them in wavelengths or frequencies, closely and then by reflecting those beams away from the be-object. We can call it grading, or you can think of it as a prism in mind, the beams all joining in a single output beam. Pitti always uses the one I use, which is Pink Floyd’s The dark side of the moon Record cover.
Harvest Records / Pink Floyd
The iconic dark side of the moon cover.
So, if you look at that prism, there is a white light beam that comes into the prism and it fills in the colors of the rainbow, you can run that verse lute, you can have a whole bunch of beams that cover different spectra. , And if you put it through a prism, it all gathers the same beam and outputs. We call it the ‘reverse prism effect’. So all we could do was scale the laser power modularly. Instead of just trying to make a bigger and bigger laser, we actually scaling through it Adding lasers up.
Think of it as a mainframe computer, broken down into a superfunging cluster. So, instead of just building one big device, we’re connecting in parallel. And so what enabled us to do that is to create a high-power laser that is scalable by adding modules delivering weapons class beams, but with very high beam qualities.
Lockheed Martin
The Lahid Kahid Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL), which now aims at a 300 kW class rating, will provide a new counterserver against rockets, drones and artillery.
I will get this from the point of view of the laser weapon system, it is more than important laser power, it has the ability to focus on the beam, it is able to spread the beam over long distances, it stays tight focused. And of course, in the weapon system, it is important that you be able to do acquisition tracking and visual stabilization to keep the place on the soft zone of the target. Fiber-laser technology is also, as I said, the most efficient in converting electric power into laser light. So, all of a sudden it means that the platform demands, even if you are in a ship, truck, or plane, can provide power and then cooling can be reduced; It’s definitely not zero, and we’re talking about 30% to 35% efficiency in converting electric power into a useful laser beam. It may not sound great to you, but compared to older solid-state laser technology, it was only 10%.
It’s a big one, Big Deal.
Lockheed Martin
The Athena laser of LeHed Kahid punches a hole in the target vehicle.
This meant that the system demanded, the demand for the platform was greatly reduced, and this meant that the laser weapon, not just the laser, the whole laser weapon could now begin to become small enough, powerful enough, to deploy it now. For. Even in military vehicles, navy ships and aircraft. So, it has really changed the game. And as you can see, our clients have a lot of activity in this domain, now all services are advancing capabilities in laser weapon systems for land, sea and air. In all of these domains, Leah Kahid Martin is the premier provider of this technology, and we’re working on all of these domains.
Therefore, the main message type is that the final part of the puzzle was solved using the fiber laser arms field, beam joint – descriptively beam joint fiber laser technique. Now we see that we are moving beyond S&T, science and technology demos … is this even possible? We are now seeing those early systems being built and ready to be deployed on the platform. For example, we have a program, Helios [High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance] Program, which aims to create, integrate and install a laser weapon system on DDG Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer.
Lockheed Martin
What’s fundamental about it is that beyond laser technology and acquisition tracking and pointing, it builds a laser weapon into a ship’s combat system. That’s another area where, of course, we’re very proud to be leading in that domain. When you’re at the console and looking at the buttonspace, being able to decide what the hazards are, and what’s the best counter to that threat, whether it’s the same capability, whether it’s a directed energy release or a dynamic energy release. , And we want to work on those capabilities … I don’t know what the correct word is … synergistically? Symbolically? They will work together and provide choices and use the best option for combat commanders.
One would imagine that if you had a large number of low-cost hazards, you would not want to use high-priced, highly capable dynamic missiles against low-cost UAVs, right? You may want to use your laser which has a lower operating operating cost after installation and then you can catch your kinetics for more severe hazards that are probably unsuitable for the laser. So, considering the evolving threat landscape, being able to provide choices, capabilities, I think that is the value proposition we are trying to provide to our customers. So, in a nutshell it’s kind of.
