The U.S. Navy is proceeding with plans to develop a laser weapon that Marines could fire from Humvees or similar light tactical vehicles to shoot down unmanned aircraft.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced June 11 that it has begun working with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and industry partners to design and build the Ground-Based Air Defense (GBAD) Directed Energy On-the-Move system, including such components as the laser, beam director, batteries, radar, cooling, communications and command and control.
ONR said the program has awarded contracts worth almost $23 million to seven companies. The largest contracts went to Raytheon; which will provide the laser itself; L-3 Communications, which will build the beam director; and Saze Technologies, which will deliver a multi-mission radar. Other recipients include Advanced Cooling Technologies, Equinox, Leidos and Navitas.
GBAD is scheduled to begin field tests against targets later this year. Testing will begin with a modified 10-kilowatt “surrogate” laser before advancing to a 30-kilowatt Raytheon “objective” laser in 2016.
Potential adversaries are expected to use unmanned aircraft more frequently, and GBAD, which offers a low cost per shot compared to projectile weapons, will “provide an affordable alternative to traditional firepower to keep enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from tracking and targeting Marines on the ground,” ONR said.
“GBAD gives the Marine Corps a capability to counter the UAV threat efficiently, sustainably and organically with austere expeditionary forces,” said Marine Col. William Zamagni, acting head of ONR’s Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department. “GBAD employed in a counter-UAV role is just the beginning of its use and opens myriad other possibilities for future expeditionary forces.”
GBAD is one of several U.S. military efforts to make laser weapons a reality after decades of research. In April, the Army awarded a $25 million contract to Lockheed Martin to design and build a 60-kilowatt laser that will be installed on the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD), large military truck. Late this summer, the Navy plans to deploy a laser weapon prototype on the USS Ponce transport ship for testing in the Persian Gulf. In addition, the Navy is exploring putting lasers on destroyers and the new Littoral Combat Ship.
