Boeing truck-mounted laser system downs UAV

27 January 2009

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which has emerged as a most potent battlefield technology in recent times, primarily because of its lack of visibility, may not retain its aura of invincibility for long with Boeing reporting successful testing of technology capable of tracking and shooting down these omnipresent birds.

Aerospace and defence giant Boeing has reported that a prototype truck-mounted laser has shot down a UAV at a missile range in New Mexico. A UAVs relatively smaller size makes it comparatively more difficult to shoot down.

UAVs come in all shapes and sizes from hand-launched Ravens to a small airliner-sized Global Hawk.

Boeing's Laser Avenger is an infrared laser designed to shoot down the smaller variety of UAV, which are most difficult for conventional air-defence weapons to target. It is supplied with power levels somewhere in the tens of kilowatts range and is mounted on a Humvee.

In the latest exercise the Avenger tracked three small UAVs, the exact model of which was not revealed, and shot one of them down. The system tracks an object and waits until the target is close enough for it to cause burning with a single blast.

Since its first exercise in 2007, when it blew up a stationary improvised bomb, the power of its laser has doubled.