Lockheed Martin has been awarded $26m by the US government’s
Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to develop a high-power fibre laser that
will be tested on a fighter jet by 2021. Lockheed Martin is helping the Air Force Research Lab develop and mature high energy laser weapon systemsThe contract to develop the laser is part of AFRL’s
Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program, which is
developing all of the technologies required to install and operate a
high energy laser weapon on an aircraft.
Last year AFRL also awarded contracts worth a reported $90m to Boeing
to develop the pod in which the laser will be housed, and $39m to
Northrop Grumman, which is responsible for the beam control system that
will track targets, compensate for atmospheric conditions that could
distort the laser beam, and focus the outgoing beam on the target.
Lockheed’s portion of the project, known as LANCE (Laser Advancements
for Next-generation Compact Environments) will see the development a
high-power fibre laser that will disable targets. Northrop Grumman is responsible for the beam control systemAs previously reported by The Engineer,
Lockheed has been developing technology based around fibre laser beam
combining – a technique in which beams from multiple fibre laser modules
are combined to form a single, powerful, high quality beam – for a
number of years now.
Along with a number of other major defence contractors, including Raytheon and MBDA, the company has carried out a series of trials of laser weapons mounted on ground vehicles, but LANCE, which is designed to operate in a far more compact environment, presents a far greater challenge.
“Earlier this year, we delivered a 60kW-class laser to be installed
on a US Army ground vehicle. It’s a completely new and different
challenge to get a laser system into a smaller, airborne test platform,”
said Dr. Rob Afzal, senior fellow of laser weapon systems at Lockheed
Martin. “The development of high power laser systems like SHiELD show
laser weapon system technologies are becoming real. The technologies are
ready to be produced, tested and deployed on aircraft, ground vehicles
and ships.”
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