This fall, Raytheon intends to test a laser weapon that can actually work and perform a military mission. The key, says Raytheon directed energy vice-president Mike Booen:  the company looked for a requirement that needed the laser's speed-of-light engagement and that could be met with off-the-shelf technology.

Two years ago, Raytheon performed a ground test in which two 60 mm mortar rounds were destroyed at 500 m range using an off-the-shelf commercial fiber laser - a 20 kW unit of the type used for welding and other industrial processes. This has now led to the prototype Laser Air Defense System (LADS), combining a 50 kW fiber laser and a beam director attached to a Phalanx gun mount.

The company has mocked-up LADS in transportable form on a HEMTT (Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) and will offer it as an adjunct to the C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) system that is already deployed in the Middle East. Advantages: an infinite magazine and assured inflight detonation of the mortar round, causing less damage on the ground. A mock-up of the beam director, which uses low-cost aluminum alloy reflectors, is on show at Farnborough.

At the end of the year, too, Booen expects that the US Departyment of Homeland Security will decide whether to go ahead woth a $15 million scale test of Raytheon's Vigilant Eagle, designed to jam MANPADS shoulder-fired missiles with an electronically steered high power microwave (HPM) beam.

pic: Raytheon