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Drone-Mounted Laser Weapons Are On the Way
Daniel_Stuckey writes "DARPA is funding research into drone-mounted laser weapons. The project, called Endurance, is referred to in DARPA's 2014 budget request as being tasked with the development of 'technology for pod-mounted lasers to protect a variety of airborne platforms from emerging and legacy EO/IR guided surface-to-air missiles.' The budget explains that it will be the first application of DARPA's much-discussed Excalibur laser defense system, which developed lasers powerful enough to use as weapons. With the new program, DARPA is focused on miniaturizing the technology, as well as 'developing high-precision target tracking, identification, and lightweight agile beam control to support target engagement. The program will also focus on the phenomenology of laser-target interactions and associated threat vulnerabilities." In other words, DARPA hopes that drone-mounted lasers will soon be able to shoot missiles out of the sky."
(whilst wearing my tin hat - na na - cannot get me)
So it's both immoral AND unethical...
Warning: Do not look at drone with remaining eye...
They should designate it the Semiautonomous, High-Altitude Recon/Kill drone, so that we can finally have SHARKs with frickin' laser beams.
I never thought I'd feel nostalgic about the "good old days" when only sharks had mounted laser weapons.
Power source? I am immediately struck by the design obstacle of stashing enough power capacity onto a 140 hp propeller UAV. Even if designers manage to get enough power stored on board, it will most likely result in the drone being limited to a single blast (while seriously degrading operational range).
This sounds like a pretty cool video game. I've always an RTS where you can drop drones with lasers into the battlefield... and they're probably stealthed, too! Thankfully, no military in the world would ever make something this crazy, though.
Why are you telling me that I need to reread the original post?
Teaching laser drones Phenomenology?
"Let there be light!"
--- Mercutio was right.
Seeing as they specifically mention Electro-Optical and Infra-Red guided missiles, It seems that the objective is not to 'blow up' a missile as the linked article suggests, but rather to use a laser to blind the missile's tracking systems, causing it to lose tracking and veer off target or "generate a miss" as they say.
Getting a laser to destroy a missile requires about 100 kW of energy and a few tons of hardware to focus it.
Getting a laser to blind optical sensors requires a $10 Radio Shack gift card.
Any sort of adjustable mirror designed to reflect lasers seems like it would have a huge impact on missile aerodynamics.
You'd also need to make sure the mirrors stay very clean throughout flight... condensation or dust would absorb the laser's energy and begin melting the mirror underneath. There's also issues with matching the mirror to the wavelength of the laser, the fact that no mirror reflects 100% of light and any distortions in the mirror could make it worse.
You'd be better off with some sort of ablative armor on the missile.
Making a pun about this one would be like shooting sharks in a barrel.
I wonder whether it would be as simple as coating the missile with bicycle reflectors or cats eyes from the road
Korma: Good
The problem is the arms race.
Drone figures from WP show that as of Q1 2009, of the 223 USAF UAVs in operational service, only 4 were shot down. Whereas 11 were lost due to accidents (mainly flying into things), and 55 were lost due to equipment failure, operator error, or weather.
Importantly, the current failsafe for OOC UAVs is to shoot them down with AIM-9 missiles, which is what happened to a reaper on 13 September 2009. Developing an autonomous laser defence would preclude this failsafe.
In brief, the US government should be spending it's money on other problems. Given a vote, I doubt that the US populace would sign up for this particular budgetary spend.
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I think a reflective surface on a rotating missile is simple and goes a long way.
Except, as I just mentioned, a reflective surface would be a piss poor defense against a laser. Between dust, condensation, wavelengths, and the fact there's no such thing as a perfect reflective surface it would be mostly pointless. An ablative surface, such as the space shuttle used, would be a significantly better defense.
Quad copters seem to be all the rage right now. Perhaps large quad copters could carry all kinds of weaponry both fer defense and aggression that could be kept airborne during moments of great danger. Lasers are only one tool. Small missiles that can take down enemy planes or missiles would have quite an edge if launched from a decent altitude. Ground troops could also be dealt with by hovering platforms hovering directly above. Weapons such as tanks might be rather useless against such a system.
The first model with a laser so-equipped really needs to be called the "Shark".
-Styopa
It's kind of brilliant of DARPA, really. If a bit evil. By setting their sights on missiles, they establish the idea of defensive technology, but ensure that any effective weapon will also make short work of a less durable and less agile target like a human being. In this way, the R&D team is spared the thought of building something that will burn a hole through some hapless person, even though the eventuality of their work will be exactly that.
A low-albedo coating would certainly help; you're unlikely to reflect enough energy to hurt the drone, but you can definitely minimize the heat absorbed.
Tin-foil turbans.
better update their LinkedIn profile
I can build my drone control module and my drone swarms and take the battle to the dirty Methanoids!
The Solar System, and the entire Galaxy, will be Humanity's!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Do they mate with the friggin' Shark Queen?
Would that make them Friggin' Frankin' Sharks?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Apart from any ethical consideration, at least it creates jobs for many scientists and engineers and as such stimulates the economy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSactZxGGrw And kill the working class in a world of diminished resources.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rthHSISkM7A
An autonomous platform asked to perform beyond existing technology using a weapon that is inefficient, ineffective, and hyper expensive.
Useless.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
lol I read that as lasers with drones mounted on them. As in my lasers has 3 drones mounted on it.
Even a partial defense would mean the drone would need to get closer and track more accurately, for longer. Increasing the chance of making it through.
Are these laser-equipped drones programmed to shoot at The Flood or shoot at you?
If armed drones are used domestically against civilians, kill the drone operator's and their superior's families & children as well in the most horrid & excruciating ways possible. Ideally, kill the families/children right in front of said domestic armed-drone operators & superiors before they die, and then publicly release videos of their horrific deaths as a disincentive for future domestic armed-drone use against civilians.
That's a good way to make a martyr and galvanize their resolve, actually.... not a very good deterrent, in the same way that capital punishment and 3 strikes laws actually increase the risk of crime because a person on their third strike has nothing to lose.
Modern Progressivism & Liberalism: Ideas so good they must be mandatory to function.
So... the above was your idea of progressivism and liberalism?
Jessica focused her mind on lasguns, wondering. The white-hot beams of disruptive light could cut through any known substance, provided that substance was not shielded. The fact that feedback from a shield would explode both lasgun and shield did not bother the Harkonnens. Why? A lasgun-shield explosion was a dangerous variable, could be more powerful than atomics, could kill only the gunner and his shielded target.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
They will have to adapt to a new market or die. Like any other manufacturer. (or get bailed out which seems more likely)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
No, not the laser weapon program (which will just have the usual amount of fraud) but the DEFENSIVE RESPONSE. Cloud machines will get some serious research as well as water misting, reflective dust or "nano particle mirrors" from filling the air to special paint.
These lasers can't fire long sustained blasts, you just have to dissipate the heat for that short period of time. Visible light lasers are going to be significantly impacted by the AIR and distance to target as well as the humidity.
Not to mention the Geneva treaties which banned blinding weapons along with chemical warfare. Your legit laser weapon shot over a long distance is going to diffuse so that tank at 10 miles away is now the side of city block with blind children. Still preferable to generations of horrific birth defects the nuclear waste (depleted uranium) causes today... Amazing that nuclear waste is allowed as a weapon just because it's not literally a chemical weapon.... If I throw this acid at you really hard... it's a kinetic weapon not a chemical one! ;-p
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
DARPA is focused on miniaturizing the technology, as well as 'developing high-precision target tracking...
If they miniaturize and precisionize them enough to do Lasik, could they call it a "surgical strike"?
Ha! I got a million of 'em!
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
mounted on the head of the new SHARK Drone series?
Instead of trying to punch holes in things, why not do what even cheap handheld lasers are eminently good at--- blinding people? Rake a powerful laser across the windshield of a speeding SUV and laugh while the vehicle runs off the road, flips, and burns simply because the person operating it is screaming in rage and agony because they've been blinded.
Real Genius work there. All I need now is some popcorn.
I'm thinking of a round clear sphere of low reflectance material that's clear, and then a mirror that moves inside that. However, I'm sure I'm "under thinking" a solution here.
Likely this will take in-flight ultrasonic reconfiguration of a flight surface, or create a force field that distorts sub-space in order to be visible, but not to create wind shear.
And as long as you are doing that, why mess with these primitive lasers? You have force fields, and you usually have gate technology. Is this Slashdot or Introduction to Space/Time Manipulation 101 class? Did everyone audit that class when they majored in Psych 101 or something?
BTW, anyone have a pair of half Plank-length tweezers? I lost mine with my nano car keys...
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Yes, that is what I mean. I trust that ablative surfaces work a lot better but there can be simple approaches for reducing the energy that is absorbed on a certain spot on the missile with a factor 10 or maybe more. Rotating won't help if the laser uses a very short burst and if it has a way of compensating for the rotation. But it's not about making things perfect just about making it harder for the other side. Stealth planes also don't work with all radars.
Instead of tens of wedding guests being blown to smithereens by the shrapnel from a missile, they'll be burnt to death by a laser. I'm not sure which is more humane. At least with a missile, there is a short period of time after it's launched to run for cover...
Stick Men
No reason you can't have both: A white ablative coating.
is the best approach because it could capture the laser, bend it around, and shoot it back at out at the drone. remember space balls? how they used that row of pipes to fire back at the guys with laser guns?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Agreed.
That's a good way to make a martyr and galvanize their resolve, actually.... not a very good deterrent, in the same way that capital punishment and 3 strikes laws actually increase the risk of crime because a person on their third strike has nothing to lose.
I disagree. If drones are being used to attack/kill civilians domestically, then the situation for civilians is desperate and any pretense of government restricting itself to any civilized "rules of war" became non-existent long before such retaliations would begin. It would be more of a reply-in-kind type of retaliation.
Being domestic in nature, that puts the drone operators and their superiors local to the conflict and vulnerable. I believe that a sustained extreme-retaliation program against the drone operators/superiors would have the effect of dissuading potential new recruits/replacements and cause insubordination and chaos among the ranks, as many will prefer punishment for refusal to follow orders to attack civilians rather than risk their and their family's lives to horrific deaths.
Bottom line, at the point that the government is using armed drones domestically to kill civilians, any pretense of "civilized" conflict would have been long in the past, and the government would have already "taken it there" in spades regarding "war crime" levels & types of violence against civilians.
The government would have already created many civilian martyrs and strengthened the civilians' resolve by the time such retaliations against armed drone use would start, resulting in such extreme retaliations against them. There would be little for civilians to lose by engaging in such brutal retaliations at that point.
LOLwut? You're not making any sense. That's a forum "sig", not part of the posts themselves. You that green? Wouldn't have thought so, considering your user-ID number. Try reading the Slashdot "FAQ" section if you're still confused.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
An ablative surface on the front of a shuttle that is screaming through the atmosphere has little effect as it burns away. On a targeted missile, it would act like a small jet on the side of said missile.
Cheap storage VM.
Better solution: 2+ missiles
Best solution: supersonic rail gun launched iron rods that do their damage via kinetic energy. If they hit as a solid rod or as a molten lump it's mostly the same.
Cheap storage VM.