Laser Powers Lockheed Martin's Stalker Drone For 48 Hours

garymortimer writes "Lockheed Martin (LMT) and LaserMotive, Inc., recently demonstrated the capabilities of an innovative laser power system to extend the Stalker Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) flight time to more than 48 hours. This increase in flight duration represents an improvement of 2,400 percent. Stalker is a small, silent UAS used by Special Operations Forces since 2006 to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions."

Comments

It was a test indoors, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article, "At the conclusion of the flight test, held in a wind tunnel,"

So they've pointed a laser at a photocell indoors, this is so far from doing it over hostile territory as to be laughable.

Re:It was a test indoors, so what?

[plover]

From the article, "At the conclusion of the flight test, held in a wind tunnel,"

So they've pointed a laser at a photocell indoors, this is so far from doing it over hostile territory as to be laughable.

This is what research looks like. You don't start out testing a ready-to-deploy espionage platform. You take an idea, enhance it a bit, test it to see if your change works, enhance it more, see if your changes improved it, etc. Nobody's laughing at this stage, but I bet they were cheering.

Leaking the test results is also what 'marketing to investors' looks like. "Hey, Vulture Capitalists Inc., we've got a shiny laser powered spy drone for you to invest in, and we have proof of some ongoing tests ... the military is interested ... you'll get rich ... give us $20 million ... please?"

Re:It was a test indoors, so what?

[Samantha Wright]

Sorta, but aren't they called senators?

Nice

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure that any airborne attackers will greatly appreciate this opportunity to locate the ground station.

relative terms

[Gravis Zero]

<LMT> "Stalker is a small... it's only half the size of a predator drone!"
<guy> "Oh?... How large is a predator drone?"
<LMT> "The size of a bus."

Better hope the laser is infra-red

[wisebabo]

Otherwise it'll be pretty obvious (in any atmospheric conditions where there are particles or aerosols) as to just where the drone (and base!) is.

Of course with a pair of night vision goggles the same might be true of an infra-red laser. How about x-ray? ;)

Power it from above

[Gothmolly]

You can power them from satellites rather than ground based - you'll escape all the dust and much of the atmospheric crap, and your power will be free from the sun. Park a satellite over the Middle East and you have LOS everywhere.

Re:Power it from above

[aaronb1138]

I tried to design a system like that once, but during the development I had a dream where I was dressed in a Sun God robe surrounded by naked women chanting and throwing pickles at me. That brought and end to it all.

Re:Power it from above

[evilviper]

You can power them from satellites rather than ground based - you'll escape all the dust and much of the atmospheric crap, and your power will be free from the sun.

Satellite power isn't free... In fact it's EXTREMELY expensive. Satellite EoL is most commonly when solar panels have deteriorated enough that they can't provide the trickle of power most sats need.

Yes, you escape dust problems, but then you pick up the problem of hugely-increased distances from laser to drone.

And the biggest problem is targeting... Drones are small, subject to atmosphere turbulence and ground control, both of which can cause sudden location changes, and the satellite is going to need to handle this, in real-time, or else a massive laser beam suddenly shines down at the feet of the people who aren't supposed to know they're being spied on.

Re:Power it from above

[Kugala]

Thankfully this is a problem solved by MORE POWER. The most revered of all engineering solutions.

Re:so you can get a line of sight?

[plover]

earth is curved, lasers are straight, how many seconds can you actually do this in the field before you loose the tiny target ... not counting in wind, drift, clouds, rain, or some dipshit playing with his watch?

Stabilized aiming platforms better not be a challenge for the military. Hell, there are kids making segway-clones and auto-aim-paintgun-bots out of web cams, Arduinos, and old inkjet printer stepper motors. You think a funded organization with a military product can't simply place an order with www.mobileweaponsplatforms-R-us.com and have one delivered tomorrow?

Re:so you can get a line of sight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was so hoping for that link to be real.

Re:so you can get a line of sight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no pro (though I've been shooting a long time), and I can reliably put 25 x .22lr rounds on a quarter at 100 yards, prone, sling (no rest), using only the aperture sights on my anschutz. With a .308, good glass, a couple sighting rounds and good conditions, a pro could almost certainly land a good percentage of rounds fired on a dime. I wouldn't bet what I have in my wallet that I could do it, though.

But I think the original point was, with a computer controlling a recoilless device that isn't affected by crosswind like a bullet... I'm sure you could easily keep a laser on a car-sized target at a mile if you needed to. We've achieved far more complicated feats than that.

Re:No Explanation

[0100010001010011]

I've played enough SimCity 2000 to know that this is a terrible idea.

Re:Money grabbing pitch.

[plover]

Did you RTFA? It said nothing about the test conditions inside the wind tunnel, only that “This test is one of the final steps...The next step in proving the reality of this technology is to demonstrate it outdoors in an extended flight of the Stalker.”

They could have used a low powered laser to simulate range. They could have introduced dust, smoke and fog into the tunnel to simulate weather. And they don't need to prove the tracking platform works if they already have a tracking platform that works, and such tracking platforms were demonstrated last year on test aircraft at distances of 20km or more. And none of that info made the blurb, which as I said looked designed to stimulate investment.