AFRL'S ELLA - Getting Electric Lasers Airborne


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AFRL'S ELLA - Getting Electric Lasers Airborne

Posted by Graham Warwick at 3/17/2010 6:45 AM CDT

Perhaps I read too many space operas, but I have a fascination with laser weapons. In fact, two such programs are competing for an Aviation Week Laureate, to be awarded tonight in DC: the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) and the Joint High Power Solid-State Laser (JHPSSL). Now the US Air Force Research Laboratory has issued an RFI for the Electric Laser on Large Aircraft (ELLA) program.

The RFI is intended to identify companies able to develop a high-power electric laser weapon system module and integrate it onto an airborne platform for flight testing. The laser has to meet Air Force needs for limited tactical air-to-ground precision engagement and air-to-air self-defense. The end goal, if it goes ahead, is to demonstrate the maturity and lethality of an electric laser weapon at a level supporting transition to a future acquisition program.

Concept: DARPA

The RFI doesn't say much about ELLA, but a little more detail is to be found in an online job posting seeking a chief engineer for the program. It says:

"ELLA is a scalable electric laser technology for airborne tactical High Energy Laser applications including: advanced beam control technology to enable ultra-precise lethal attack; integration of high power laser, beam control, systems control, electrical and thermal management. ELLA will have the ability to deliver specific target effects, ranging from disruption to destruction, against tactical targets, precisely, near instantaneously, and with minimal collateral damage. The platforms for ELLA are larger platforms such as a bomber or gunship."

Elsewhere on the interweb is an Air Force presentation from 2009 that shows the ELLA demo to be the precusor to a proposed Next Generation Tactical Laser Weapon (NGTLW). The notional schedule shows the ELLA demo in Fiscal 2012-14, an analysis of alternatives beginning in Fiscal 2012 and the pre-EMD technology development phase beginning in Fiscal 2016. The NGTLW would be developed first for large aircraft and later for fighter-sized aircraft.

ATL. (Photo: Boeing)

ELLA sounds like a follow-on the the ATL program, which demonstrated precision air-to-ground engagements with a high-power chemical laser mounted in a C-130 testbed. It also sounds like a follow-on the JHPSSL program, which demonstrated 100kW solid-state lasers in the lab, and to DARPA's Hellads program, which plans in 2011 to ground-test against targets a 150kW electric laser weapon system designed to fit inside a B-1 bomber or C-130 gunship.