Security

Air Force Zaps Drones in Laser Test

In a recent series of tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif., a trailer-mounted laser was able to knock five unmanned aircraft out of the sky. The demo, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory, was a test of the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), an experimental system developed […]

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In a recent series of tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif., a trailer-mounted laser was able to knock five unmanned aircraft out of the sky.

The demo, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory, was a test of the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), an experimental system developed by Boeing Directed Energy Systems. According to a company news release, the test showed the ability to take down a hostile unmanned aircraft with a "relatively low laser power" weapon. According to AFRL, MATRIX uses a two and a half kilowatt-class high energy laser.

While ballistic missile defense may get all of the press, some homeland-security experts worry about a more low-tech threat: drone technology. Bill Baker, chief scientist of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, said in a statement that the shootdowns "validate the use of directed energy to negate potential hostile threats against the homeland."

It's not clear, exactly, how the lasers shot down the drones: Whether they disrupted the aircraft controls, or burned a big hole in them. (An AFRL news release said the drones were "acquired, tracked and negated at significant ranges" but offered few additional details.)

As part of the counter-drone tests, Boeing also shot down an unmanned aircraft with its Laser Avenger system, a Humvee-mounted directed-energy air defense system the company is developing. They also test-fired a lightweight 25mm machine gun integrated on the Laser Avenger platform (the machine gun fired at a static target board, not a drone). The idea behind this is to use good ol' kinetic energy -- i.e., a stream of hot lead -- as a backup if the directed energy system fails to down the target.

Boeing has been developing a range of directed-energy weapons for the military, including the Airborne Laser (a Boeing 747 reconfigured as a ballistic-missile shooter), the Advanced Tactical Laser (a laser gunship), and the High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (a mobile laser cannon that can shoot down rockets and mortars).

[PHOTO: AFRL]

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