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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.
You are all Drones. Drones make Rrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrrrrr Drones rrrrrrrrrrr! Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr make the drones. YOU DRONES!!!
can you mount it on a shark?
it can be transported in a few medium-sized boxes"
How big is a medium-sized box?
Rosanna Arquette or John Edwards
My guess is that this will be marketed towards governments to protect capital buildings from drone attacks. Just recently in Japan someone managed to fly a drone with radioactive and onto the roof of the parliament building and left it there for a week before anyone found it. There have also been other such incidents involving drones, and the white house, to which the secret service have admitted they have no way to stop. These will be far out of reach of you average Joe.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
"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.
While this sounds like a great way to take down those pesky drones that interfere with firefighting, planes landing and taking off, etc. what sort of safeguard does this thing have against something that suddenly occludes its view? Drones can fly up to several hundred, even a thousand feet. Even though it can be controlled via a laptop, reaction time as well as latency in communications would mean anything that happens to get in between the laser and the drone could get severely hurt or damaged. Don't we have enough problems as is with just "common" lasers being pointed at aircraft?
perfect idea, until the drone thats built with reflective, ceramic-composite materials shows up.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Mirrored surfaces on the drone?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
If it takes this laser 2 seconds to drill through a tough drone body, how long would it take this laser to cause serious injuries to a human being if the drone were protected by mirrors (say mirrors camouflaged by a thin film that the laser can destroy instantly) that reflect the beam downward towards a crowd on the ground?
mozzies are way more annoying than drones
Now we need someone to make a Laser-Killing Drone.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Cue the knuckleheads with their "just put mirrors on the dronze herp derp!"
Mirrors aren't 100% efficient reflecting all wavelengths. Mirrors are heavy; a mirror covered drone won't work very well.
I'll stand by my previous post that #4 birdshot is still more fun, plus it it mirror resistant.
My guess is that this will be marketed towards governments to protect capital buildings from drone attacks. Just recently in Japan someone managed to fly a drone with radioactive and onto the roof of the parliament building and left it there for a week before anyone found it.
This is a failure of detection not interception. The laser will only work if somebody first spots the drone.
Much more likely to actually be used.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
... when they figure out how to make it into a bug zapper.
Lol. I would just put mirrors on my drone and destroy the laser.
Idiots.
Can't wait until this makes it to the open source community!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Are we talking about those relatively small drones with multiple propellers that cost $1k or so and fly at a few hundred feet altitude or are we talking about the big ones the CIA and military use in places like Syria and Iraq? The big ones may have GPS guided bombs able to be flown at night or through clouds and fog and can be effective weapons in bad weather. Lasers aren't very useful in bad weather situations because of light scattering. Would this anti-drone device be useful for, maybe, shooting down Amazon packages?
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
So this is all they can come up with, just mirror coat the drone and the laser is of no use. We coat glass with compounds that create perfect mirrors, you could do the same with drone covering... My 8m old baby could do better than this.
I do believe some guy in New jersey beat Boeing to this goal by a year, and for hundreds of millions less....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I do believe some guy in New jersey beat Boeing to this goal by a year, and for hundreds of millions less.... (resubmitted thanks to /.'s odd URL wiping behavior)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Going to make interesting cases when someone gets blinded or dazzled so that they have an accident by the light reflecting off the drone.
This will make a lot of lawyers rich deciding whom to sue.
"The laser needs just a few seconds of continuous to set a drone aflame"
That continuous is bad news! Who knew? I wonder if Amazon sells it?
My guess is that this will be marketed towards governments to protect capital buildings from drone attacks. Just recently in Japan someone managed to fly a drone with radioactive and onto the roof of the parliament building and left it there for a week before anyone found it. There have also been other such incidents involving drones, and the white house, to which the secret service have admitted they have no way to stop. These will be far out of reach of you average Joe.
They will be obligatory if you want to have a large wedding reception in Afghanistan.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
When this tech gets simple enough that any suicidal mass-murderer can get ahold of one, no low-flying aircraft will be safe - which means no aircraft taking off or landing in a populated area will be safe.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
When they get to shark helmet size let me know. I still want my sharks with fricken laser beams.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
This is a ridiculous assertion. Rocket Propelled Grenades are not for sale at gun shows in the US.
.50 anti-aircraft guns with significant licensing. Not 'extreme survivalists' so much as military memorabilia collectors.
Some civilians do own
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Begun, The Drone War has!
Even if they spot the drone what can they do about it? It's not like they can randomly fire bird shot at it, and they don't have any sort of practical anti air system for such a small flying device. The laser system is meant to fill that gap.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
So they finally invented something that would make me seriously consider buying an Xbox. I hope they have it in the stores in time for Christmas. I can think of a dozen great uses for it -- killing flies, drilling holes through would-be burglar's shoes (feet inside), a new way to light the barbecue grill. In fact, who needs the grill? Next summer I can reprogram it to keep the squirrels out of my peaches at the same time it prepares me a tasty laser-grilled peach-fed squirrel for dinner out of the ones that move too slowly! One wonders if it is sensitive enough to keep a yard cleared of mosquitoes (without putting anyone's eyes out, of course, at the yard party).
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
That is all it would take, a team of drones with the first one being a decoy that will damage the laser. Sorry Boeing but there is a smarter way of taking out drones, without projectiles or lasers.