Electronic Shield Against Artillery?
Researchers Test Lasers as Defense to Enemy Shells, Missiles

By David Stevenson, Tech Live

April 16
— Star Wars-style laser weaponry is coming to the battlefield. 
While troops won't be replacing their assault rifles for ray guns just yet, high-tech lasers are nearly ready for other combat uses.
Last year the U.S. and Israeli armies field-tested a chemical laser made by TRW that successfully knocked out 100 mm rockets and artillery shells.

But making powerful lasers fit for use against enemy artillery means that they'll have to be mobile enough to keep up with fast-moving tanks and other units that make up a modern fighting force.

And the key to developing a more agile laser system may lie in research being done at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

Making Laser Systems Mobile

"This is actually a very pivotal time in terms of high-powered laser systems," says Brent Dane, project manager for high-energy lasers at Lawrence Livermore Labs.

For about six years he and his team have been hard at work on a high-powered, portable, electric laser for the U.S. Department of Defense.

"If there's one sort of key aspect of a solid-state laser, it's mobility," Dane says. "And the mobility comes from a very high electrical efficiency and architectures which support compact, very lightweight designs."

Humvee-Mounted Defense

Using special "beam director" software, a laser can lock onto an in-flight missile and heat the explosives inside their metal shell, causing them to detonate before they reach their target.

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has just developed a 25-kilowatt laser and is working on a 100-kilowatt version, which Dane says will supply enough power to knock out a missile in two to three seconds.

The 100-kilowatt laser should be ready for combat by 2010, Dane says. However, the battlefield technology doesn't end with the lasers. The lasers will likely ride into battle atop hybrid electric Humvees.

"If you look at the typical traction battery that's being proposed for these hybrid electric vehicles," Dane says, "that battery will be adequate for actually powering a hundred-kilowatt laser system."