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Army Laser Passes Drone-Killing Test
Nerval's Lobster writes "Commercial package-delivery drones such as those revealed by Amazon and DHL could face danger from more than shotgun-toting, UAV-hunting yahoos following the successful test of a drone-killing laser by the U.S. Army. Though it's more likely to take aim at enemy observation drones than Amazon's package-deliver 'copters, the U.S. Army's High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL-MD) did prove itself in tests last week by shooting down 90 incoming mortars and a series of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). The original goal during the test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico was to burn out or blow up mortar rounds and blind the cameras or other sensors carried by drones. The laser proved capable enough to damage or slice off the tails of target drones, which brought them down, according to Terry Bauer, HEL MD program manager, as quoted in the Dec. 11 Army announcement of the test. The quarter-sized beam of super-focused light set off the explosives in the 60-millimeter mortars in mid-flight, leaving the rest to fall 'like a rock,' Bauer said. The laser could target only one mortar at a time, but could switch targets quickly enough to bring down several mortars fired in a single volley. The laser and its power source are contained in a single 500-horsepower, four-axle truck but was directed by a separate Enhanced Multi Mode Radar system. The next step is a move from New Mexico to a testing range in Florida early next year 'to test it in rain and fog and things like that,' according to Bauer."
Laser, neat. Couldn't you just wrap the UAV in Mylar to deflect it?
The laser could target only one mortar at a time,
In the words of 15 year old sarcasm-meisters from 1989, "No Shit Sherlock?". Though I for one welcome the innovation of lasers which are broad enough to simultaneously detonate a bunch of mortars spread out over several hundred feet in 3D space.
Excellent acroynm! HEL-MD - Dr. Hell
Do these lasers come with sharks attached to their frickin' bottoms?
Considering drones should be susceptible to conventional means of destruction (read: bullets, missiles), I was wondering why bother with directed energy weapons? The answer appears to be (1) discretion (because a drone dropping out of the sky is totally not attention-grabbing) (2) the ability to shoot through walls (okay, that's pretty cool), and (3) lower "cost per kill."
million of American children ARE STARVING THIS WINTER, and the best we can do is brag about some fucking laser that will oppress a bunch of other homeless people in a different country?
Slashdot you are an enabler - this is not stuff that matters, and we've known the science of lasers for quite some time now. Bragging about the treasonous military is going to do nothing good for anyone.
They're going to move it to Florida to test it in ran and fog.
RAN = Japanese pronunciation of "rebellion."
Tomorrow's headlines: US ARMY DEPLOYS JAPANESE LASERS INTO FLORIDA TO QUELL REBELLIOUS FLORIDIANS!
The advertising mission of Amazon's drone delivery (to be seen as apart from any material effects that program may have) seems to be working well; it's even getting the company mentioned in articles about completely unrelated issues.
America pays millions every year for obesity related healthcare for poor people getting free food.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I was wondering why bother with directed energy weapons?
With speed of light weapons the target does not move very far between firing and impact. Point of aim is basically point of impact, unlike bullets. No guidance system required, unlike missiles.
Ammunition is unlimited as long as you have power.
And because sci fi fans have been waiting for this since 1898. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells.
Also, you don't have projectiles flying off past the target if you miss or pass-through. If there's a friendly base, city etc beyond the drone, you most probably don't want to light it up with bullets or missiles.
And for a "kill" in space you don't get the debris problem. Just a burned out image sensor on an otherwise intact spy satellite.
Well, if the Government has all these energy-super-ray-guns-whatnots and the only thing we're legally to own are throwbacks to the 19th century, I think these lasers blasters shoujld be legally mandated to be available to the public.
Otherwise, the Second Ammendment is just worthless - a bone to throw to us peasants to make us feel that we have retained at least some rights from the Constitution.
Or - fuck it! What is the point of the Second Amendment anymore when the Government has ray guns and we have outdated shit.
"Commercial package-delivery drones such as those revealed by Amazon and DHL could face danger from more than shotgun-toting, UAV-hunting yahoos "
Kudos to Yahoo! for finally figuring out how to compete.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Twenty years ago there was a group at White Sands called the High Energy Laser System Test Facility (HELSTF). By their front door was a concrete cube, roughly 2 feet on a side, that had a large hole drilled into it by a laser burst.
In the middle of a slightly overcast night as I was driving roughly 30 miles from the facility, and in spite of an intervening mountain range, the sky and countryside were suddenly illuminated with a very brief flash of yellow/green light.
HELSTF running a test at night. Very impressive.
America pays millions every year for obesity related healthcare for poor people getting free food.
We're trend setters.
This isn't the first U.S. Army laser system that can shoot down mortar rounds. The Tactical High Energy Laser, in test since 2000, could do it. Here it is in action. That took three semitrailers of equipment and tanks for the chemical laser. Each shot cost $3000 in chemicals. Israel wanted to deploy the thing, even though it was expensive to operate, couldn't run for long, and not very portable. It was just too clunky for combat.
The Army wanted a solid-state laser with that kind of punch, and now they have one. This new truck-mounted system uses a 10KW solid-state laser array. Probably a lot of small solid-state lasers. It might just be an array of 1000 standard 10-watt laser diodes. That's enough to take out artillery shells and small rockets. The only consumable is electricity.
Beam weapons are about to become real. The most likely initial user is, again, Israel, which has to deal with small rocket attacks in known areas. Israel's Iron Dome system works reasonably well but uses a pair of $50,000 guided missiles to take out each $800 attacking rocket.
add atmosphere. i wonder how effective smoke would be in reducing the lasers effectiveness? would you even have time to deploy the smoke. depending on the lasers tracking system you could try to avoid that/or trick it.
...
Tomorrow's headlines: US ARMY DEPLOYS JAPANESE LASERS INTO FLORIDA TO QUELL REBELLIOUS FLORIDIANS!
You'd be surprised how much it hurts when some little old lady violently runs into you with her walker.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I wants a weapon that I can attach to my phone which will cause instant annihilation of any robocall system that happens to call me.
I've never seen either a mortar round or UAV incoming. However I get multiple incoming robocalls per day.
WORK ON SOMETHING RELEVANT!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroreflector
It's just a pre-crimbo publicity stunt.
soylentnews.org
So your fancy new laser system can shoot down several mortars in a small amount of time?
Challenge Accepted! ...oh, and BTW, challenge already won; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx_9_RgMPCE#t=82
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
A laser is not a focused beam of light. It is parallel light. Get the details right.
So all the bad-guys have to do is put their jammer on top of a hospital or orphanage or whatever. They they get to put out some nice publicity about how the US is killing orphans and sick people.
Hiding behind civilians is a fairly common thing among certain terrorist groups.
I'll pretend that I Rayleigh Scattering is something that I picked up in a physics class and not something I looked up on Wiki when I got a cool new green laser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering
I love Bauer's music.
And like many an anti-aircraft (I know, anti-drone/munition) weapon before it, I imagine there are some unorthodox anti-personnel uses as well.
you have fifteen picoseconds to comply!!!
Requiem for the American Dream
Just cover your UAV with corner reflectors, and no matter what angle you're shot from, you'll send the beam directly back to the source, frying the equipment and probably its operators.
TFS mentions testing in rain and fog in FL. Fog, I wouldn't expect to be a problem; there's probably not more than a teaspoon of water in the beam path to the target and 100 kW should make that a minimal issue. Rain, I'd think, would be something else though. Is water transparent at the frequency used by the laser?
Incoming hot pizza and tortilla drones from El Paso! Fire at will and collect!
Simpler solution: Formulate your explosive to produce a lot of smoke on ignition, so that if a single mortar is destroyed mid flight, you have just deployed a smoke screen that is more difficult for the laser to cut through. Then when you call in a mortar fire mission, the first three rounds are destroyed mid flight, and the laser is then useless to target anything on the flight path until the smoke dissipates.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Other simple solution: Make outer mortar case out of ceramic. Mirrors and reflective materials don't work, so rather than reflect the laser, just absorb the energy. Ceramic can be made hard, cheap, and is a wonderful heat sink. Common formulas will work, but if needed, you can make ceramic shells out of the same stuff that they put on the space shuttle as reentry tiles.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If the mortars are flying through the air you're doing it wrong.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Wasn't Terry Bauer the wife of Jack Bauer in 24?
Have you any new developments to report on shark tech?
Hope is the currency of fools
Well, as lasers become more and more practical as weaponry, say goodbye to the age of air superiority. Practical lasers mean point and click anti air weapons, which means ground warfare will be dominant once more.