Later this year the US Navy will deploy a laser weapon aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf. Slated to be installed on the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport dock, the laser weapon system will be capable of shooting down the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and disabling the small attack boats that officials say are rapidly increasing threats.
“This is a revolutionary capability,” Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research, said in a statement. “This very affordable technology is going to change the way we fight and save lives.”
The 30-kW weapon system is a prototype that bundles six commercial fiber lasers. Their noncoherent beams converge at the target, which they burn or ablate, explains Peter Morrison, manager of the Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation Program at the Office of Naval Research. In tests, earlier versions of the system successfully defeated several UAVs and small boats.
Three navy contractors—Raytheon, Northrop Grumman,...
