Previous Military Lasers

Previous Lasers
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LATEX (1986)

LATEX (Laser Associe a une Tourelle Experimentale) a 10 MW laser by General Delegation for Armament, France. Uses a commercially developed tracking system by Laserdot.

ALL (1983)

ALL (Airborned Laser Laboratory) a 400 kW gas dynamic CO₂ laser aboard a Boeing NKC-137, a four engine cargo plane. Intercepted airborne AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles in 1983 at the Naval Weapons Center in China Lake, California The project was terminated in 1984.

MAD (1981)

MAD (Mobile Army Demonstrator) a 100 kW DF laser. Required a waste containment system for poisonous gases produced during operation. Lost funding before it could be scaled up to 1.4 MW. Later continued by Bell Aerospace Textron with Army funding under the new name Multi-Purpose Chemical Laser (MPCL).

UNFT (1978)

UNFT (Unified Navy Field Test Program, San Juan Capistrano, California) a 400 kW chemical DF laser. Used a Hughes aircraft targeting and aiming system. Intercepted TOW antitank missiles in flight. In 1980 a captive UH-1 helicopter was destroyed.

MTU (1975)

MTU (Mobile Test Unit) a 30 kW electrically-excited CO₂ laser built by the U.S. It was housed in a Marine Corps LVTP-7 tracked landing vehicle. Reportedly destroyed winged and helicopter target drones in tests, but results were reported inconclusive.

AURORA

a 1,300 J, KrF 249 nm, 7 to 3,000 microsecond pulse laser at the Los Alamos National Laboratory can be focused to a 0.5 micron spot with an intensity of 10¹⁴ W peak power.

Companies participating in early laser work

Hughes Aircraft Company
AVCO-Everett Research Laboratory
Optics Technology
United Aircraft's Pratt & Witney
Perkin Elmer
Maser Optics
Texas Instruments
Applied Lasers
General Precision
Honeywell Incorporated
Corning Glass
RCA
Chrysler Corporation
American Optical
Columbia University
Westinghouse
Atlantic Research
General Electric
General Dynamics
Philco
Technical Research Group
Raytheon
Coherent Radiation
Spectra-Physics
Quantatron

date : April, 1966
- shock tube experiments to create a laser by using the rapid heating of a CO₂ - N₂ mixture
- Edward Gerry, AVCO-Everett Research Laboratory (AERL)
date : June, 1966
- combustion chamber and rapid adiabatic expansion to create a laser by rapid cooling of a CO₂ - N₂ mixture
- Edward Gerry,
- built by : AVCO-Everett Research Laboratory (AERL)
date : 1967
- power : 10 kW
- type : GDL CO₂ - N₂ - H₂O mixture
- comment : good beam quality
- Gerry and Arthur Kantrowitz
- built by : AVCO
date : 1967
- location : AFWL
- power : 1 kW
- type : electrical CO₂ laser
- built by : Raytheon ($78,000 U.S.)
RASTA - Radiation Augmented Special Test Apparatus
- date : May, 1967
- location : Air Force Avionics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB
- power : 8 kW
- type : GDL
- built by : AVCO
MK-5
- date : March, 1968
- power : 138 kW
- type : GDL
- built by : AVCO
- location : Haverhill research facility (65 km north of Boston)
XLD-I (eXperimental Laser Device)
- Date: October, 1968
- Power : 210 kW
- Comment : 1 % efficiency
- Built by : Pratt & Witney
- Location : Florida Test Facility, West Palm Beach
date: 1976
Type: CO₂ electric discharge
Built By : AVCO
Housing : mobile test unit mounted on a modified Marine Corps LVTP-7 tracked amphibious assault vehicle
Performance : disabled a 4.6 m MQM-16A drone travelling at 480 km/hr
Location : U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
date : 1978
- Power : 400 kW
- Type : DF laser
- Built By : TRW
- Performance : shot down an Army TOW missile :
  - Purpose : tank neutralization
  - Diameter : 15 cm
  - Launch platform : Tube
  - Tracking : optical
  - Guidance : electrical wires
- Location : U.S. Navy, San Juan Capistrano, California
- Precision pointer tracker :
  - Built By: Hughes

"Fundamentally, there is no limit to the power which can be obtained by the laser"
Charles Townes, Columbia University., 1961
GDL and chemical lasers remove waste heat more efficiently than solid state lasers
A fast moving aircraft is less vulnerable than a fixed ground-based laser
At higher altitudes the atmosphere is less dense reducing absorption
The combined effects of aircraft and wind motions reduce thermal bloomimg. When the beam is propagating perpendicular to the resultant aircraft and wind velocity vector the beam has less of a chance of heating the air because the air is rapidly replaced with fresh cold air. (A ground based laser only has winds to help reduce thermal blooming)
Beam degradation
- Thermal blooming: beam heats air reducing its density creating negative lens
- absorption
- phase distortions from local variations in the index of refraction of air
- r^-2 inverse square of the distance to the target
Targetting problems
- beam must not move around the target spot given that both the source and target are moving
focused power depends of the inverse square of the wavelength (gaussian beam waist minumum)
Countermeasures:
- more missiles
- decoys
- spin the missile
- make missile more reflective
- depress missile trajectories
References

Chemical Lasers
- UIUC Chemical Laser Group
- COIL laser cutting thick aerospace materials (Air Force Research Laboratory test)
Other 'Star Wars' Lasers
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