{"id":169480,"date":"2025-05-14T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=169480"},"modified":"2025-05-11T18:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T22:26:15","slug":"how-do-you-kill-a-drone-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=169480","title":{"rendered":"How do you kill a Drone? more"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Well we talked about a few swat ’em systems yesterday – there are others, such as Emirates’ Halcon small missiles which claim to be able to take down drones, choppers, UAVs, etc. by integrating existing small rocket, and canister systems. There are even hunter-killer drones, such as the net-armed hunter-killers developed at Robins Air base almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n

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But let’s move into science fiction – except it ain’t.<\/p>\n

Two other kinetic energy weapons which don’t use ‘bullets’ come to the fore. Lasers and microwave systems transfer energy to what’s in their path, and if they are concentrated enough, can deliver energy sufficient to destroy the recipient without any bothersome ammunition requirements.\u00a0 More later.<\/p>\n

We are already testing a laser system on some Navy ships.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Navy has one such system, the<\/span>\u00a0Lasers Weapon System<\/span>\u00a0(LaWS), already mounted on the USS Ponce and has<\/span>\u00a0recently deployed<\/span>\u00a0the new Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (<\/span>ODIN<\/span>) on the USS Dewey. As\u00a0<\/span>The Debrief\u00a0<\/span><\/em>reported at the time<\/span>, that system can interfere with unmanned aerial system sensors. In that same report, we noted the Navy also plans to deploy\u00a0<\/span>Lockheed Martin\u2019s HELIOS system<\/span>\u00a0aboard the USS Preble this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the USAF,\u00a0<\/span>Raytheon\u2019s High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS)<\/span>\u00a0is already undergoing field testing to identify and neutralize enemy drones. As Jeff Newson, the company\u2019s director for high-energy laser systems<\/span>, explained to Defense News<\/span>, \u201cRaytheon has updated the tracking algorithms and the advanced electro-optical targeting system that helps to identify the drones, with a limitless magazine. The cost per shot is what two people can pay for a cup of coffee, hence the advantages for customers who are going to target very small, cheap drones.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You may laugh at the cost comparison – but consider we are routinely firing million dollar missiles at $20,000 rockets from the Houthis, this becomes important.<\/p>\n

The Army\u2019s system is an even more complicated, six-layer concept, composed of the Ballistic, Low-Altitude Drone Engagement (BLADE), the Multi-Mission High-Energy Laser (MMHEL), the Next-Generation Fires Radar; Maneuver Air Defense Technology (MADT), the High-Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator (HEL-TVD), and the LowCost Extended Range Air Defense (LOWER AD) systems. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sigh… does this surprise anyone? Six layers! But on to microwave systems:<\/p>\n

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The<\/span>\u00a0Tactical High Power Operational Responder (<\/span>THOR), built at Kirtland Air Force Base, offers a benefit other systems can\u2019t. Specifically, it can spread a wide field of electromagnetic radiation to counter several targets at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

Army Lt. General L. Neil Thurgood said, \u201cThe Army\u2019s directed-energy capabilities will need to provide a layered defense with multiple ways to defeat incoming threats. High-energy lasers (only) kill one target at a time, and high-powered microwaves can kill groups or swarms, which is why we are pursuing a combination of both technologies.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They all seem to like the Norse mythology, don’t they? (“Hulk smash!”) Looks to be about the size of a 20 -foot shipping container.<\/p>\n

Back to those lasers. We usually use continuous-wave lasers, which are great for blinding enemy sensors, but not real good at energy transfer- we can blind ’em but not hit ’em. But using ultrashort pulsed laser (USPL) we can completely disable an attacker\u2019s electronic systems or even blow the thing out of the sky. (Hmm, I’m gettin’ kinda..well…excited.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUSPL systems are able to neutralize threats via three distinct mechanisms,\u201d the Army\u2019s posting states, \u201cablation of material from the target, the blinding of sensors through broadband supercontinuum generation in the air, and the generation of a localized electronic interference used to overload a threat\u2019s internal electronics.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Peel ’em, blind ’em, jam ’em.\u00a0 But, here comes that fly in the ointment:<\/p>\n

To accomplish this goal, the proposal indicates that the laser must operate in the incredibly powerful terawatt range (current systems only operate in the kilowatt range) and be able to fire all of that energy in a shockingly brief 200 femto-second pulse. For comparison, a terawatt is a trillion watts, as opposed to a kilowatt which is a comparatively paltry 1,000 watts, and a femto-second is essentially a quadrillionth of a second.<\/span><\/p>\n

Packing that much power into such a short burst means this laser system will be<\/span>\u00a0three orders of magnitude more powerful<\/span> than even the most powerful systems currently in use, and can offer an ultra-precise, ultra-potent option for forces hoping to counter the increasing threat from UAVs.\u00a0 The Debrief<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds like the theory is understood, but we need the power and speed to make it work. Heck, I am not even sure how short a quadrillionth is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well we talked about a few swat ’em systems yesterday – there are others, such as … How do you kill a Drone? more<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[503],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}