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Boeing Demonstrates Drone-Killing Laser
An anonymous reader writes: Boeing has successfully tested a new weapon system that tracks unmanned aircraft and shoots them down with a laser. The system is surprisingly small — it can be transported in a few medium-sized boxes, and two techs can set it up in minutes. The laser needs just a few seconds of continuous [contact] to set a drone aflame, and the tracking gimbal is precise enough to target specific parts of a drone. "Want to zap the tail so it crashes and then you can go retrieve the mostly intact drone and see who is trying to spy on you? Can do. Think it's carrying explosives and you want to completely destroy it? No problem." The laser is controlled with custom targeting software that runs on a laptop, with help from an Xbox 360 controller. Boeing expects the laser system to be ready for sale in the next year or two.
"Shooting drones down will not solve the problem."
Shooting drones down will solve the problem of having drones in the air. That's the problem this device is designed to solve. None of the other things you mention come under the remit of this device, and the device was not intended to address or solve them. This is just the latest in anti-aircraft evolution.
Mirrored surfaces on the drone?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
mozzies are way more annoying than drones
it can be transported in a few medium-sized boxes"
How big is a medium-sized box?
Rosanna Arquette or John Edwards
This device seems to be an adaptation of the mostly-failed experiments to knock down mortars and grad-style rockets with lasers. Those systems only worked if the projectile was following a previously-known flight path and the laser was set up to protect that specific path, because they couldn't target fast enough. Real-world mortars are less predicable, but drones are slow enough that the targeting seems to work on them.
It is rather convenient for the researchers that a slower, more media-visible target for their mortar-laser was developed!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Which has me wondering just how much unpredictable manoeuvring a small autonomous aircraft would have to do to defeat it.
What color is it? What about highly reflective surfaces? Many cheap products have "chromed plastic" surfaces. How about ablative surfaces? This is only going to work for a while, as it's going to be easy to design around. But at least it might help keep drones from dropping pistols into prison courtyards for a while.