Solid State Laser News

Cordy said:
Breaking Defense "After CENTOM experiments, Army seeks more rugged counter-drone lasers to put on vehicles "August 13 - talking to Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the Director of Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), and others

Looking for laser with capability to take out Group 1 to Group 3 UAS [<1320 lbs; <18,000 MSL (3.4 miles); 250 knots] with reliability and affordability, encountered challenges with the D M-SHORAD Stryker 50 kW under testing in CENTOM in the Middle East and planning a new competition and is encouraging the use of the JLTV platform with a competitive prototyping phase in fiscal 2025 before crowning an ultimate winner in FY26, if the Army can obtain funding.

Army focusing on "fluence" (ideal beam director and beam forming getting the power down range?) their metric of energy delivered per unit, while zeroing in on in-theater maintainability.

BlueHalo mentions a 20-to-30 KW laser will likely be the sweet spot for the competition and is working to design laser with more modular parts though for some components, like the optics says you still need a clean room, which presume a negative?

PS An oversight? Breaking Defense does not mention the Lockheed Martin and nLight offerings of their versions of D M-SHORAD

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/08...gged-counter-drone-lasers-to-put-on-vehicles/
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"Army focusing on "fluence" (ideal beam director and beam forming getting the power down range?) their metric of energy delivered per unit, while zeroing in on in-theater maintainability."

Fluence is energy per unit area. In order to compute the fluence of the laser beam on the target, one needs to know the laser power at the target, the dwell time on the target, area of the laser spot on the target, and the laser irradiance profile across the laser spot on the target (e.g., Gaussian, flat top, etc.).

"BlueHalo mentions a 20-to-30 KW laser will likely be the sweet spot for the competition" That's probably because BlueHalo's P-HEL is 20 kW.

"PS An oversight? Breaking Defense does not mention the Lockheed Martin and nLight offerings of their versions of D M-SHORAD"

The article mentioned only one laser provider by name, BlueHalo and that was as the laser provider for P-HEL lasers.

The article states "When it comes to the competition field, a host of companies already competing in the directed energy space are expected to line up for a spot on the program. That list includes BlueHalo, which has delivered several P-HELs to the service."

The article does not mention by name any of the companies that have been competing to provide the laser for the DE M-SHORAD program, nor the prime contractor for the program.

The prime contractor for the program is Kord Technologies. Raytheon RTX supplied the lasers for the first prototypes.

nLight received a contract from Kord in December of 2023 to provide a laser for iteration 2 of DE M-SHORAD (see https://www.defenseandmunitions.com...GHT is serving as a,in support of this effort. ).

Northrop Grumman dropped out of the competition early, before the initial run-off trials against the Kord/Raytheon team at Ft. Sill in 2021, due to power and thermal management system issues with their prototype. Perhaps they will re-enter the fray again in this next round of the competition.

Lockheed Martin calls their 50-kW laser offering for DE M-SHORAD DEIMOS. DEIMOS achieved first light in January of 2023, but Lockheed Martin did not have their prototype ready for competition for DE M-SHORAD until March of 2024 (see https://frontline.asn.au/news/finally-the-us-armys-new-super-laser-weapon-is-ready-for-battle/ ). They will probably offer DEIMOS for this next round of the competition.

I haven't seen anything about Boeing's or General Atomics' laser offerings for DE M-SHORAD except for a mention of them without details in the article at https://www.photonics.com/Articles/nLIGHT_Awarded_345M_Defense_Contract/a69500 , which states "To date, companies including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Atomics have produced laser prototypes under the DE M-SHORAD project."
 
It seems to me that they are only advertising the minimal capacity demonstrated. But obviously we can also read that all others have failed to prove their reliability.
Given the rugged aspect of the competition, would that make sense to have power greater than 20kW when detection and targeting can only be done with EOIR or short range radar sensors (cheap anti-drone radar have a fairly low range)? In anyway, the overall system being sized to engage just above the fence.
 
TomcatViP said:
It seems to me that they are only advertising the minimal capacity demonstrated. But obviously we can also read that all others have failed to prove their reliability.
Given the rugged aspect of the competition, would that make sense to have power greater than 20kW when detection and targeting can only be done with EOIR or short range radar sensors (cheap anti-drone radar have a fairly low range)? In anyway, the overall system being sized to engage just above the fence.
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As is usual for military technology development, early development stages are focused on developing and demonstrating technical capabilities, which for lasers usually entails starting at low power and scaling to higher powers while demonstrating maintaining good beam quality. The applicability of the laser to particular sets of missions will depend on the power and beam quality level, and size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C)

In parallel with technical capability development, but staggered a little later in time, development and demonstration of reductions in size, weight, and prime power draw are undertaken in order to make the system compact enough for fielding on the intended platforms. Then early testing of prototypes in systems of suitable size, weight, and power on representative platforms are undertaken. If or when those tests result in sufficient performance, then begins efforts to improve the other "ilities" : reliability, manufacturability, maintainability, sustainability, interoperability, etc., including the costs thereof.

Currently, the 20 kW to 50 kW HEL weapons have been through the early prototype testing/demonstration phase with some reductions in SWaP to be suitable for some representative platforms, and shown the requisite technical capabilities required for class 1 to 3 UAS in field tests. They are just entering the phase of ruggedization required to address the above listed "ilities" under programs such as discussed in the Breaking Defense article, so it is unreasonable to expect that any of these prototypes would be reliable in real operational environments at this stage in their development.

As to whether it makes sense to have greater than 20 kW in this competition given the rugged aspect of the competition, I think the answer is yes since 20 kW may be sufficient under good atmospheric conditions and target engagement geometries, but in degraded conditions, more power may be required even to reach the acquisition and tracking range limits of the EOIR sensors and/or short range radars.

It doesn't do much good to show that it is relatively easy to ruggedize a 20 kW HEL system if that system is grossly under powered for the mission in real world operational conditions. Since SWaP-C and the challenges for ruggedization and reliability will increase with increasing power, having ruggedized prototype development and testing at powers from 20 kW to 50 kW may show if there is a "knee" in the curve for the difficulty in providing system ruggedness and reliability as the laser power increases, at which "knee" in the curve the difficulty increases at a much greater rate than prior to that "knee" in the curve, without providing a commensurate increase in mission capability.

Also, 20 kW may be sufficient power when used with a very good beam director with adaptive optics, but 50 kW may be needed for use with a less capable and perhaps smaller beam director. Ruggedization of a simpler and/or smaller, but less effective beam director and a 50 kW laser may or may not be technically easier and less costly than for a complex and larger, but more effective beam director and a 20 kW laser. These kinds of system trades will be explored by each competitor in the design phase, with each competitor probably opting for different solutions in the trade space unless there are overwhelming factors that favor one type of design over the others.

Such design, development and testing may validate BlueHalo's claim that 20-30 kW is the sweet spot, but it may instead show that 40-50 kW is the sweet spot. The answer could be that even 50 kW is under powered, but even at that power level ruggedization is too difficult or too costly without some new game-changing development. We won't know until such design, development and testing is done.
 
The Army at first glance appears to moving away from the Stryker 50 kW laser to their suggesting use of the JLTV platform for the C-UAV laser for Battalion force protection, or will they be additional to Stryker lasers? Presuming the JLTV laser will be lower powered than the Stryker laser due to its smaller SWaP-C in line with BlueHalo mention of a 20-to-30 KW laser.

A very fast response was required, industry white papers had to be rec'd yesterday, August 14, program as outlined is the system must be ready for a sensor and laser lethality characterization test in 1QFY25, a lab demo in 2QFY25, an integrated system field test in 3QFY25, and a Soldier Touch Point (STP) event in 1QFY26 to production of up to 20 weapon systems at TRL 7 under a production OTA Award by 3QFY26.

SAM.gov

sam.gov sam.gov
 
Cordy said:
The Army at first glance appears to moving away from the Stryker 50 kW laser to their suggesting use of the JLTV platform for the C-UAV laser for Battalion force protection, or will they be additional to Stryker lasers? Presuming the JLTV laser will be lower powered than the Stryker laser due to its smaller SWaP-C in line with BlueHalo mention of a 20-to-30 KW laser.

A very fast response was required, industry white papers had to be rec'd yesterday, August 14, program as outlined is the system must be ready for a sensor and laser lethality characterization test in 1QFY25, a lab demo in 2QFY25, an integrated system field test in 3QFY25, and a Soldier Touch Point (STP) event in 1QFY26 to production of up to 20 weapon systems at TRL 7 under a production OTA Award by 3QFY26.

SAM.gov

sam.gov sam.gov
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You may be correct about the Army moving away from the Stryker 50 kW laser, but it could be that the Army wants to move forward with both the existing 50 kW laser for the Stryker and a lower power laser for the JLTV or other smaller platforms.

The announcement states ""The U.S. Army objective is to produce a HEL weapon system capable of fixed site defense (“palletized”) and/or integration onto an existing Army Platform, such as a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV)." So a fixed site "palletized" version is also an option.

Since the response is so fast requiring that "The systems must be ready for a sensor and laser lethality characterization test in 1QFY25" (1QFY25 starts October 1, 2024), they are looking for systems already under development and nearing transition from the lab. Those vendors who already have 50 kW HELs under development for the Stryker, may just scale them back to 20-30 kW output and package them with the thermal management, power systems, and interfaces necessary for the JLTV and/or for palletization.

The announcement indicates that their was an Industry Day at Redstone Arsenal, AL to discuss the Enduring HEL Weapon System requirements on 18 July 2024. That's where the government gave them more details on the requirements and answered interested parties' questions. For example, the announcement states "Demonstrate a lethality requirement that will be fully defined at Industry Day at a higher classification level than this document allows."
 
Forest Green said:
www.spacewar.com

Precision Two-Axis Fast Steering Mirror Platform by Physik Instrumente Introduced

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 14, 2024 - Physik Instrumente (PI) has announced the release of the S-335 fast steering mirror (FSM), a two-axis tip-tilt platform designed for high-resolution and fast-motion applications. The S-335 utilizes
www.spacewar.com
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PI makes some very good FSMs that are space qualified.

However, the blurb and link to another article at the bottom of the new PI FSM announcement intrigued me more: NASA and JAXA exchange laser signals between SLIM lander and LRO in lunar orbit
 
Let´s not forget the risks of dissemination. A weapon system adapted to rugged environment is one that is carried onto battle with minimal support and greater risk of capture by an opponent. Limiting the power level to something that is in line what the foreign market is able to produce is de-facto drawing a line to proliferation (see the last Taliban defile in Afghanistan for example).
 
TomcatViP said:
Let´s not forget the risks of dissemination. A weapon system adapted to rugged environment is one that is carried onto battle with minimal support and greater risk of capture by an opponent. Limiting the power level to something that is in line what the foreign market is able to produce is de-facto drawing a line to proliferation (see the last Taliban defile in Afghanistan for example).
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Excellent point!
 
PLAN is testing a high power laser prototype on a Type-071. Previously it has been thought that they’d use HQ-10 for point defense but they dragged that out so long for budgetary reason that something fancier was ready technologically.

1724067831668.jpeg
With protective dome on.

1724067918379.jpeg

Without dome.
 
siegecrossbow said:
PLAN is testing a high power laser prototype on a Type-071. Previously it has been thought that they’d use HQ-10 for point defense but they dragged that out so long for budgetary reason that something fancier was ready technologically.

View attachment 737465
With protective dome on.

View attachment 737466

Without dome.
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For those who may not know, the Type 071 (NATO reporting name: Yuzhao) is a class of Chinese amphibious transport dock ships in service with the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
 
www.twz.com

Laser Weapon Appears On Chinese Amphibious Assault Ship

A Chinese Type 071 amphibious transport dock has emerged from a refit sporting a new laser directed energy weapon system. A Chinese amphibious transport dock has emerged from a refit sporting a new laser directed energy weapon system.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 

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