The U.S Air Force recently tested Lockheed Martin's Advanced Test High Energy Asset anti-drone laser.
Advanced Test High Energy Asset, or ATHENA - also the name of the Greek goddess of was
used yo take out drones.
The laser defense system knocked out several drones out of the sky demonstrating that it
can handle multiple threats per engagement.
As per reports, the system shot down multiple Class 1 and 2 fixed-wing and rotary drones
at a government-owned training range at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
It is important to note that this is the first time U.S Air Force personnel used the system
independently, without Lockheed engineers
In this video Defense Updates reports on the successful testing of Advanced Test High Energy
Asset.
Let’s get started.
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The proliferation of drone technology has meant that the chances of facing asymmetric
threats are much more than it was a decade before.
In January 2018 Russian forces faced a drone swarm launched against Khmeimim Air Base,
in Syria.
The Russian were able to neutralize these drones.
Though the attack was able to inflict limited damage it indicated that the threat of the
drone swarm has arrived.
A recent example is the September attack on Saudi Arabia.
On September 14, facilities of Saudi Arabia's oil company Aramco located in the east of
the country came under attack.
As per reports, the raid began around 4 a.m and drones as well as cruise missiles were
used in the attack, there were 18 drones and 7 missiles.
The world’s biggest oil refinery near the city of Abqaiq and a refinery near Khurais,
where Saudi’s second-largest oil field is located were targeted.
The damage was significant & this caused a spike in global oil prices.
This kind of scenario can occur in U.S Air Force bases too.
A swarm of cheap drone armed with small explosives could cause massive damage to multi-million
dollar warplanes, radars, etc.
The adversary could potentially cause a lot of destruction without having to put in significant
resources.
For example, a Lockheed Martine F 35 Lightning II costs around $ 80 million apiece and could
be easily disabled by a grenade sized warhead.
John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy recently stated,
“We’re seeing asymmetric investments in things like swarming UAS technology, like
unmanned aerial systems that really fly more like the cruise missiles.
It’s a serious problem.”
Rood didn’t specifically mention the Saudi attacks, but indications were clear.
So, it is clear that the U.S military needs to address the growing challenge of targeting
small, basic but potentially lethal drones.
This is where laser weapons come in.
Lasers are concentrated beams of light that transmit large amounts of electromagnetic
radiation against their targets.
The power of a laser is generally stated in kilowatts.
The general idea of laser-beam weaponry is to hit a target with a train of brief pulses
of light.
The rapid evaporation and expansion of the surface cause shockwaves that damage the target.
When a laser beam strikes a target, it can cause the external surface to heat up rapidly.
This can cause a drone to burst in the sky as its battery pack or fuel tank to ignite.
Even if this doesn’t happen, the laser could fry the electric sensors & communication modules
of the drones which will make them lose contact with its operate and deplete its ability to
navigate, ultimately disabling them.
Lasers have some very important advantages.
The speed of light enables them to hit their targets almost instantaneously.
Laser weapons also don’t need to carry ammunition like traditional systems and hence they will
be able to take out a much larger number of threats constrained only by the power supply
limit of the platform.
They are also so much cheaper and could cost as less as $1 per shot.
This is much more cost effective than deploying traditional weapons.
For example, an FIM-92 Stinger short-range shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile has
a price of $ 38,000 and a Patriot surface-to-air missile costs around 1 million each.
As per Lockheed Martine, ATHENA is a prototype laser weapon system that is designed to defeat
close-in, low-value threats such as improvised rockets, unmanned aerial systems, vehicles,
and small boats.
ATHENA is a transportable, ground-based system that serves as a low-cost test bed for demonstrating
technologies required for military use of laser weapon systems.
It is a 30-kilowatt laser weapon system that uses the 30 kilowatts Accelerated Laser Demonstration
Initiative (ALADIN) laser.
ALADIN combines the power of three 10 kilowatt fiber lasers into a single 30-kilowatt beam.
The use of multiple lasers means it can also operate at lower levels, say 10 or 20 kilowatts
if required.
30 kilowatts is sufficiently powerful to knock down drones.
Lockheed said in the release, "The radar track was provided to airmen who
operated ATHENA via cues from the C2, then ATHENA's beam director slewed, acquired, tracked
and defeated the drone with a high-energy laser,”
Lockheed spokesman Mark Lewis told Military.com, "The Air Force focus is to field-test and
evaluate directed-energy systems for counter-drone capability and readiness for fielding for
air base defense mission,”
Meanwhile, the Army's focus has been "to determine what capabilities -- directed energy and C2
-- will facilitate the defeat of aerial threats for the maneuver brigade and maneuver battalion,"
he said.
That includes defense against mortar attacks.
The new test follows two previous experiments by the U.S Army in 2015 and 2017.
The fiber laser, equipped with advanced beam control technology, took out five Outlaw drones
at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 2017.
Laser technology is still relatively new and scientists and engineers are working round
the clock to master it.
There are many challenges when it comes to using the laser for combat usages.
American military’s tryst with laser weapons is not new.
In 2010, the Air Force mounted and fired off a megawatt-class chemical laser from a modified
Boeing 747.
Things have changed since then and instead of unstable chemical laser used for that experiment,
solid-state lasers are now being used.
The SHiELD program is developing a directed energy laser system that will act as a demonstrator
for a self-defense system that could eventually enable aircraft to protect themselves from
surface-to-air (SAM) and air-to-air (AAM) missiles.
On April 23, 2019, the U.S Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Self-Protect High Energy
Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) Program successfully achieved
a major goal.
A laser developed as part of the program had shot down several air launched missiles in
flight.
The system could be deployed as an add-on pod in the future.
In August, the Air Force awarded Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems a $23.8 million
contract for two prototype high-energy laser weapons (HELW) systems, designed to take out
unmanned aerial systems.
A news report published earlier this year states that emerging counter-drone technologies
-- both for civil and military use -- are on the rise and will see an increase over
the next decade.
It is evident that laser will have a significant part to play in future combat and they are
becoming reality much faster than what we could imagine a decade earlier.