Light fantastic: US eyes laser weapon technology for future ship self-defence
By Richard Scott
22 May 2009
Free Electron Laser technology could provide future US warships with speed-of-light defence against air and surface threats. (ONR)
Two small design scoping contracts let by the US Office of Naval Research (ONR) in mid-April could come to mark the genesis of a radically different type of ship self-defence weapon system.
Boeing, through its Directed Energy Systems business, and Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems each received USD6.9 million awards, funding a programme of Phase 1A preliminary design activities for a 100 kW-class Free Electron Laser (FEL) testbed to de-risk and demonstrate technologies applicable to a follow-on megawatt-class FEL weapon system.
These parallel 12-month studies, which effectively seed ONR's Innovative Navy Prototype Roadmap for Scalable FEL Weapon Capability, will lay the groundwork for a multistaged programme of design, development, fabrication, integration and test intended to culminate in trials of a prototype around 2015.
The US Navy (USN) and ONR view a FEL-based weapon system as a potential 'game changer', hence their willingness to potentially invest more than USD160 million in an INP programme that formally begins in Fiscal Year 2010. They hope that the scientific and technological hurdles that have long challenged the efficacy of high-power laser weapons in the maritime arena can finally be overcome to realise a viable and ship-deployable weapon ready to enter service in the 2020s.
Directed-energy weapon systems have garnered significant attention from the USN for many years. But interest has recently reached a new level as the prospect of future all-electric ship architectures, starting with the DDG-1000 integrated power system, opens the way for ship-installed power to be harnessed for use by high-energy sensors and weapons.
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