Solid State Laser News

[bring_it_on]

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate (RD) is interested in receiving proposals for innovative and varying approaches to advance the state-of-the-art and scientific knowledge to develop and package laser technologies on tactical platforms in support of the Laser Pod Research and Development (LPRD) project under the Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) program. The SHiELD ATD program seeks to develop, demonstrate, and assess a high energy laser (HEL) system’s effectiveness against tactically relevant airborne threats. In order to achieve this objective, the Government is seeking to design, build, test, and demonstrate a flight-qualified laser system in a flight environment.
The LPRD project is designed to increase knowledge and understanding of critical laser technologies (power, thermal, system control, and aerodynamic integrating structure) on tactical platforms to address/retire technical challenges associated with development and demonstration of an airborne laser system at subsonic, transonic, and supersonic speeds. Initially, the Government is contemplating a two-phase demonstration schedule. The objective of the first phase is a low-power demonstration of laser effectiveness on target (details to be delineated in the initial Task Order (Task Order 0001). Subsequent Task Orders may be generated for high-power pod operation and test (Phase II), alternative pod configurations, or to support additional test contingencies.

The SHiELD ATD program is comprised of several contractual components; therefore, significant collaboration between industry partners involved in the effort is essential. LPRD is the second of these procurements and is focused on (an) innovative aerodynamic structure(s) which provide(s) the laser system integration environment, a surrogate high energy laser (SHEL) for the low-power configuration, the power and thermal management subsystems (to handle laser system loads), and the system control subsystem (hardware and software to include the battle management/fire control functions for the system). The LPRD- developed demonstrator will also incorporate the separately developed beam control subsystem (BCS) and have the ability to incorporate (in Phase II), a separately procured HEL. The other four procurements (not part of this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)), will provide the BCS, HEL, test support, and Government systems engineering support. Due to these multiple procurements, LPRD offerors should expect to work closely with other contractors to meet the objectives of the SHiELD ATD program.

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 35.002, Research and Development (R&D) contracts are directed towards objectives for which the workor methods cannot be precisely described in advance. It is difficult to judge the probabilities of success or required effort for technical approaches, some of which offer little or no early assurance of full success. Due to the nature of R&D, improvements in technology and theories may result in possible changes to the contractor’s technical proposal or statement of work, prior to award or after technical performance has commenced. Offerors are advised that additional latitude for changing a contract may exist when the contract is for R&D, noting that the scope of such contracts is often flexible, to all unanticipated changes due to lack of definitiveness of the Government’s objectives.

Phase I (Task Order 0001) is a low-power demonstration. The LPRD-developed demonstrator should include a structure to integrate the LPRD- developed subsystems [which includes the power, thermal management, and system control (including battle management (as defined in Joint Publication 1- 02))], and for the low-power demonstration, a SHEL (LPRD-procured). The LPRD-procured and integrated subsystems will then be integrated with the BCS (separately procured and provided as Government Furnished Property (GFP)) by the LPRD contractor in collaboration with the BCS developer. The resultant low- power system will engage targets and score performance (detect and track targets, and deposit surrogate laser energy on aimpoint) against them at up to transonic speeds and collect supersonic flight aero-effects data (wavefront measurements). For additional information, refer to the Task Order 0001 SOO, included as Attachment 3 to this BAA.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.army.mil/article/167447/HEL_MTT_fires_away_during_MFIX_2016/

 

[bring_it_on]

AFRL seeks podded system for fighter jet laser demonstration


The Air Force Research Laboratory is looking for a podded system that could accommodate a laser that would have enough power to negate incoming threats to a fighter jet, AFRL officials told Inside the Air Force this week.

The Laser Pod Research and Development (LPRD) is one of three efforts within the AFRL directed energy directorate's Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) Advanced Technology Demonstration program, which plans to integrate a high-energy laser pod onto a fighter jet for defensive capabilities. LPRD procurement will develop the pod, thermal management system, battery and cooling system.

The government is examining a two-phased demonstration schedule for LPRD, with an initial low-power demonstration and high-power pod operation and test, according to an April 27 broad agency announcement posted in Federal Business Opportunities. During the low-power demonstration, the LPRD subsystem will be integrated with the beam-control system and attempt to detect and track targets up to transonic speeds. The laser would have enough power to negate incoming threats to the aircraft during the high-power demonstration, SHiELD program manager Richard Bagnell said in a May 4 email to ITAF.

AFRL released a request for information in February for Laser Advancement for Next-Generation Compact Environments (LANCE), which seeks an electric laser source which could be carried on both 5th and 6th generation aircraft, the notice states. The service held an industry day last December for companies capable of integrating a laser source and beam-control system on a fighter and in July 2015, AFRL held an industry day for the beam-control portion of SHiELD, known as Shield Turret Research in Aero-Effects (STRAFE).

The pod's aerodynamic structure will allow it to deal with high-speed airflow up to supersonic velocity, Michael Perry, vice president of lasers and electro-optics at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. said in a May 4 interview with ITAF. The removable device is also more cost-effective than modifying the aircraft, he said.

"Modifying the aircraft is just absurdly expensive," he said. "[The Air Force] is trying to demonstrate laser technology and get as much technical data as you can for as cheaply and quickly as possible."

LPRD tackles one of SHiELD's more formidable challenges: integrating a laser system into a pod that will be limited by size, weight, power and drag. The pod would would replace the 600-gallon fuel pod on an F-15 used for extended-range operations, Perry said. When the fuel pod is displaced for the laser pod, the entire aircraft system is heavier and will affect the fighter jet's performance, he said. Storing and dissipating heat also poses an integration risk for the program, he added.

Although the Air Force is looking for the pod, the service has not yet selected a laser source. But choosing a pod before the laser is possible, Perry said, because any laser source the service chooses would be an electrical, solid-state laser. The Air Force has already ruled out chemical lasers, which the service fielded on the canceled Airborne Laser Program.

"Turns out that the power system, thermal system and even the pod to a large extent, wind up being independent of the laser," he said. "The lasers themselves are quite different, but because they're both electrically powered solid state, the electrical power system and heat rejection system are quite similar regardless of what the laser is."

The beam director portion of SHiELD is also independent of the laser source, Perry said. The same beam director could be used for a fiber laser or GA's bulk laser because both sources have similar output wavelengths, he said. GA could leverage technology from the electro-optical infrared sensor ball fielded on the front of its MQ-9 Reaper. The EO/IR turret's size and scope is similar to the beam director for SHiELD, Perry said.

"You can't just take an ISR turret and make a beam director out of it," he said. "But all the technology involved is applicable, the significant advancements in EO/IR gimbles is all applicable from a technology base standpoint."

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.army-technology.com/features/featurebattlefield-2050-direct-energy-weapons-meet-the-forcefield-4872560/

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/weapons/2016/05/13/army-looks-use-laser-weapons-battlefield-2025/84321840/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2203&utm_content=buffercb4c6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Laser on an Apache

 

[fredymac]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2203&utm_content=buffercb4c6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Laser on an Apache

HEL lethality is dependent on dwell time which freezes beam position on a target over some amount of time. That's a lot more precise than your typical target designator laser. I would brassboard the layout using a shaker table to mount the optics package before fielding hardware on a helicopter. A very good IMU and a nested medium/fast steering mirror combination along with vibration cancelling mounts for the support frame might be able to do the job. Straightforward in principle but lots of opportunity to overlook details.

 

[Bill Walker]

Before getting useful data from a shaker table it would be nice to have in-flight measurements of actual vibrations, gross movements, dust, etc.

 

[fredymac]

I imagine that already exists. MILSPEC shock/vibe data has pretty extensive tables and graphs for specific vehicles both ground and air. The data can be directly used to generate software profiles to drive shaker tables. Anyone bolting hardware onto a military vehicle has to validate their designs this way. I'm not sure if that is true for a pure R&D project but I would have to assume safety reviews would require it. The video below is for a beam director which may or may not have an active secondary (ie, acts like a FSM mirror). I would assume it does. HEL systems have internal FSM mirrors for their own needs downstream of the beam director.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqc4YCVcJ9g&feature=youtu.be

 

[Bill Walker]

I imagine that already exists.

Yes and no. I spent ten years testing equipment installations in helicopters, stuff that had all gone through MIL-STD-810 testing. Some worked right out of the box, some didn't. I don't the authors of the last rev of the mil spec were thinking of high powered lasers.

 

[sferrin]

I imagine that already exists.

Yes and no. I spent ten years testing equipment installations in helicopters, stuff that had all gone through MIL-STD-810 testing. Some worked right out of the box, some didn't. I don't the authors of the last rev of the mil spec were thinking of high powered lasers.

And I imagine the requirements to keep a beam within X number of inches while miles away might be a tad different than just making sure you don't break over time.

 

[fredymac]

I can't speak to helicopters but for ground vehicles, certified testing companies (shock/vibe, blowing rain, etc) have acceleration profiles for a wide variety of specific makes and models. The mechanical engineering starts with this and generates appropriate FEA analysis to meet the requirements. The test validates the results or you go back and fix the bugs.

As for HEL pointing, it certainly raises the bar. This video shows the ATL laser on a C-130 firing on the hood of a truck. Range and altitude from the truck is not specified. The laser is a chemical COIL device without an AO system. The program was killed right after these initial firing tests rather than continue with refinements to tracking algorithms. A C-130 is not exactly a benign environment for precision pointing either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfmEUqmgsK4

 

[fredymac]

Lockheed again with their multi-fiber HEL. They don't show the 60KW version they are currently developing for integration into HEL-MD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E18uhfTB9lY

 

[bobbymike]

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/coming-soon-us-army-bases-protected-by-lethal-lasers-16527

 

[fredymac]

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/coming-soon-us-army-bases-protected-by-lethal-lasers-16527

I don't think it means what you think it means.

 

[bring_it_on]

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClotexxXEAAbXEl.jpg

 

[bobbymike]

Going on now:

http://www.boozallen.com/lp/directed-energy-summit-2016?utm_source=directedenergysummitcom&utm_medium=domain&utm_campaign=desummit

 

[bobbymike]

Managing Expectations

—Will Skowronski6/24/2016

​Directed-energy weapons will earn their way onto warfighting platforms soon, but will not be as powerful as once imagined. At least not yet, Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski said Thursday at the Directed Energy Summit hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment in Washington, D.C. Pawlikowski described how the service’s airborne laser program, which spanned more than a decade and ended without a fieldable system despite billions in investment, showed that it’s important to match expectation with capability. For instance, she said, the current state of laser technology is advanced enough for defensive, but not offensive, systems to be mounted on Air Force platforms like the F-35 and C-130J. More powerful lasers are more complex and require a lot of energy. She noted the Air Force is initiating a defensive program called Shield that will use a laser for air-to-air defense, but might not be powerful enough to take down enemy aircraft. “For every pound, and for every kilowatt of power that that directed-energy weapons take, something else has to come off,” Pawlikowski said. “I think as long as we calibrate our expectations, [then] we can make that significant step to actually ... [field] this capability and put [it] into the hands of the warfighter and let him see what he can do with it.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/06/25/air-force-has-directed-energy-weapons-now-comes-hard-part/86337816/

 

[bobbymike]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/marines-will-uses-laser-and-stinger.html

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/us-navy-admiral-says-shipboard-test-of.html

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/afsoc-favours-side-mounted-laser-for-gunship-426926/

 

[fredymac]

Another Rheinmetall video using old footage with added material. Giving a demonstration to an "international audience" adds the flavor of a sales event whether intended or not. It will be interesting to see how far Germany will keep developing this technology and if they are thinking about longer engagement ranges which will require adaptive optics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3jfR-FUFc

 

[bring_it_on]

CSBA has now posted all the panel discussions form the Booz Allen sponsored 2nd Annual Directed Energy Summit -

http://csbaonline.org/about/media-center/P6

 

[bobbymike]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/07/3d-printing-could-make-lightweight-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29&utm_content=FaceBook

 

[bring_it_on]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4eQTCv7Qhk

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2016/august/Pages/DirectedEnergyWeaponsGainingAcceptanceAcrossUSMilitary.aspx

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/europe/2016/08/04/laser-uk-thales-mbda-protest/88072328/

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defenseone.com/business/2016/08/pentagon-were-closer-ever-lasers-can-stop-iranian-north-korean-missiles/130845/?oref=d-topstory

 

[fredymac]

In the absence of any real news.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcgta5ncjtk

 

[bobbymike]

A Laser Defense

— Will Skowronski

8/31/2016

​The Marine Corps is planning to use ground vehicle-based lasers to defend against unmanned aerial systems, a top planner for the service said Tuesday. “It’s where we want to go” Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C. “It’s going to lighten our load.” Walsh, who also serves as deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, said a laser wouldn’t require powder or kinetic ordinance. But the challenge now is packing enough power into a system that can be mounted onto a vehicle. More powerful lasers, Walsh suggested, will be required to counter different threats. The Marines and Office of Naval Research have demonstrated a 10-kilowatt laser, but intend to move to a 30-kilowatt laser, he said. A Navy fact sheet indicates the program, Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-The-Move, is expected to demonstrate a UAS engagement in Fiscal 2017. “As the future goes, I think that’s just going to be continuous growth to go against higher end threats,” Walsh said. In the meantime, Walsh said the laser system will likely be paired with a Stinger missile to counter future threats. (See also: Managing Expectations)

 

[jsport]

A Laser Defense

— Will Skowronski

8/31/2016

​The Marine Corps is planning to use ground vehicle-based lasers to defend against unmanned aerial systems, a top planner for the service said Tuesday. “It’s where we want to go” Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C. “It’s going to lighten our load.” Walsh, who also serves as deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, said a laser wouldn’t require powder or kinetic ordinance. But the challenge now is packing enough power into a system that can be mounted onto a vehicle. More powerful lasers, Walsh suggested, will be required to counter different threats. The Marines and Office of Naval Research have demonstrated a 10-kilowatt laser, but intend to move to a 30-kilowatt laser, he said. A Navy fact sheet indicates the program, Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-The-Move, is expected to demonstrate a UAS engagement in Fiscal 2017. “As the future goes, I think that’s just going to be continuous growth to go against higher end threats,” Walsh said. In the meantime, Walsh said the laser system will likely be paired with a Stinger missile to counter future threats. (See also: Managing Expectations)

Seems he should have said 'continuous growth to go against higher end threats mixed w/ numerous low end threats.'
KE DEW and missile for close def (needs much assessment) but numbers will need to be countered w/numbers and a direct threat to their launch sites.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/kendall-throws-cold-water-on-laser-hype

 

[sferrin]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/kendall-throws-cold-water-on-laser-hype

Lasers are perfect for small targets so you don't have to waste an ESSM or PAC-3 on a radio-controlled airplane (micro-UAV, whatnot). They can (in theory) hit multiple targets in rapid succession. Imagine trying to hit one of these with a gun or a missile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g58r459enlk

 

[marauder2048]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/kendall-throws-cold-water-on-laser-hype

Lasers are perfect for small targets so you don't have to waste an ESSM or PAC-3 on a radio-controlled airplane (micro-UAV, whatnot). They can (in theory) hit multiple targets in rapid succession. Imagine trying to hit one of these with a gun or a missile:

I would think the near-term applicability would also include countering IR guided SAM/AAMs that home-on-jam against DIRCM.

 

[sferrin]

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/kendall-throws-cold-water-on-laser-hype

Lasers are perfect for small targets so you don't have to waste an ESSM or PAC-3 on a radio-controlled airplane (micro-UAV, whatnot). They can (in theory) hit multiple targets in rapid succession. Imagine trying to hit one of these with a gun or a missile:

I would think the near-term applicability would also include countering IR guided SAM/AAMs that home-on-jam against DIRCM.

Yep.

 

[Dragon029]

Imagine trying to hit one of these with a gun or a missile:

Very relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq0oCM37oZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR5BtXP0s0o

If either the quadcopters or the planes were munitions / suicide drones, the shooters would very likely be dead.

 

[bobbymike]

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navy-develops-laser-weapon-prototypes-destroyers-cruisers-17711

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/us-army-will-begin-50-kilowatt-laser.html

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/09/tomorrows-laser-armed-helicopter-drones/131665/?oref=d-mostread

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/UK_set_to_start_Laser_Directed_Energy_Weapon_Capability_Demonstrator_project_999.html