The Army and Boeing [BA] plan to test a 10-kilowatt high-energy laser, part of its mobile demonstrator (HEL MD), against a variety of targets this fall at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., officials said recently.
The Army HEL MD is a basic research program, said Terry Bauer, program manager for the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
“The 6.3 effort the Army is funding is to develop a mobile demonstrator for a high energy laser with the goal to put together basically a pre-prototype for major weapon system,” he said.
The Army wants the best available solid-state electric laser and is trying to ensure a rugged, compact design. Essentially, the HEL TD is a pre-prototype demonstrator.
“The only route the Army wants to take” on any coming laser weapon development is based on electric lasers, Bauer said. Other kinds of lasers such as chemical lasers, for example, put too much of a logistics burden on the service.
Working with Boeing, the current plan is to have a system in roughly four years. Right now there are two concepts proposed: 50 kW and 100 kW level lasers, Bauer said.
Mike Rinn, vice president, Boeing Directed Energy Systems, said the final integration of HEL TD was completed a little over year ago, brought to White Sands in September 2011, and conducted successful low power tests ending in December.
The potential for a directed energy system is great, Rinn said, as the counter-rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) threat is a real threat to troops, friends and allies. Compared to today’s kinetic way of dealing with C-RAM, the laser system has the potential to rapidly acquire rounds in the air, and with better logistics.
The demonstrator and subsystems are all being integrated onto an Oshkosh [OSK] Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT).
This year the program is working to increase the power on the HEMTT and integrating the 10 kW laser. A laser at this power level is at the low end of high energy lasers and can perform risk reduction for a lot of systems on the truck and resolve some questions before “going to laser powers relevant to Army,” Bauer said.
The program is also working on an adaptive optics system to help the laser propagate better through the atmosphere so a focused beam arrives at the target, Bauer said during a roundtable at the Space and Missile Defense Conference in Huntsville, Ala.
The tests this fall will look at a spectrum of C-RAM threats as well as counter air and unmanned aerial vehicles.
“There are still more things to discover about what the system can do,” Bauer said.
Rinn said the company designed, built and installed the rugged beam system and surrogate C3 systems, including the lower power laser that will “score, but not destroy targets.”
The point is to demonstrate performance capabilities, he said, show that the system can take a radar hand off, slew to the target and establish a track on it, put a beam on the target and other scoring sensors and see how well it performs.
Additionally, the program will demonstrate operational characteristics.
Bauer said the program has been looking at different aspects of the system; for example, the beam control system potentially is an “excellent system for long range ISR.” That means being able to identify targets at long range. The laser could also offer potential in the counter-IED mission, something that was tried before.
Blaine Beardsley, program manager for Boeing Directed Energy Systems, said the system is now undergoing a series of upgrades. The current plan is to move toward the next phase, putting a high power solid-state laser aboard. After that, a laser would be chosen, and the program would work to get a 50 kW laser built over the next three-to-four years, and a support system put together. The 50 kW laser would then undergo tests.