Army is testing blowing drones out of the sky with lasers

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US Army has been testing a Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle that has been refitted with a laser and electronic countermeasures that can track and disable drones.

The Stryker can use jammers and other electronic countermeasures to interrupt a drone's control signal or even force it to land...sorta like those drone guns that are in the news.

But this Stryker also is equipped with a Mobile High Energy Laser (MEHEL) that lets it blast drones out of the sky! Might be a bit of overkill for s sUAS, but it sounds awesome!
 
US Army has been testing a Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicle that has been refitted with a laser and electronic countermeasures that can track and disable drones.

The Stryker can use jammers and other electronic countermeasures to interrupt a drone's control signal or even force it to land...sorta like those drone guns that are in the news.

But this Stryker also is equipped with a Mobile High Energy Laser (MEHEL) that lets it blast drones out of the sky! Might be a bit of overkill for s sUAS, but it sounds awesome!
Wow glad I'm in NZ,,:eek:
 
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Read the last paragraph. Having been involved with laser systems for both sensors and weapons all the way back to the early 'Star Wars' programs, I can tell you that there's a long, deep valley between experiments and field tests and actually having a system deployed. I've put laser systems on some pretty impressive vehicles including a C-130 gunship! Military vehicles operation in 'normal' conditions make for some pretty harsh environments that lasers in general don't like! And a 5KW last translates to a 50-100KW power supply, maybe even more. While I applaud the Army's work on developing new ways to protect our men and women in uniform, I would loose any sleep over this thing getting out on our city streets anything soon! Even then, you would be amazed at how difficult it is to get permission to fire a laser (even ones much smaller than this one) up into the sky. All kind of paperwork including scheduling with Space Command to avoid satelites (ours and theirs). Probably easier (and that's a relative term) for LEOs to get and use a directional jamming device. But even then, you have to see it to hit it and we all know just how hard these birds can be to see in the air!
 
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