Boeing Installs High-Energy Laser on Laser Gunship Aircraft





ST. LOUIS, Dec. 10, 2007 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has installed a high-energy chemical laser aboard a C-130H aircraft, achieving a key milestone for the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program.

Boeing completed the laser installation Dec. 4 at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The laser, including its major subsystem, a 12,000-pound integrated laser module, was moved into place aboard the aircraft and aligned with the previously-installed beam control system, which will direct the laser beam to its target.

With the laser installed, Boeing is set to conduct a series of tests leading up to a demonstration in 2008 in which the program will fire the laser in-flight at mission-representative ground targets to demonstrate the military utility of high-energy lasers. The test team will fire the laser through a rotating turret that extends through the aircraft's belly.

"The installation of the high-energy laser shows that the ATL program continues to make tremendous progress toward giving the warfighter a speed-of-light, precision engagement capability that will dramatically reduce collateral damage," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "Next year, we will fire the laser at ground targets, demonstrating the military utility of this transformational directed energy weapon."

The program achieved two other major milestones earlier this year. "Low-power" flight tests were completed in June at Kirtland; the ATL aircraft used its flight demonstration hardware and a low-power laser to find and track moving and stationary ground targets. The flight demonstration hardware includes the beam control system; weapon system consoles, which display high-resolution imagery and enable the tracking of targets; and sensors. The low-power laser, a surrogate for the high-energy laser, hit its intended target in each of more than a dozen tests. Also, in late July, the high-energy laser concluded laboratory testing at the Davis Advanced Laser Facility at Kirtland, demonstrating reliable operations in more than 50 firings.

ATL, which Boeing is developing for the U.S. Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser industry team includes L-3 Communications/Brashear, which made the laser turret, and HYTEC, Inc., which made various structural elements of the weapon system.

Izvor!!!!!!!..

Ocito ne odustaju od savremenog ratovanja 

...jp....

Light + Sound = New Weapon

 Military funded researchers are preparing to test a nonlethal weapon that combines light and sound. Nicholas C. Nicholas, chief scientist of Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory, told an audience yesterday at a nonlethal weapons conference that in the first half of next year, the lab plans to test DSLAD, the Distributed Sound and Light Array Debilitator. It'll use essentially off the shelf technology to see if combining aversive noises with light produce some special debiliating effects. Anecdotal effects include dizziness and loss of balance, and of course, nausea. In other words, DSLAD could be another potential "puke ray."

As I wrote yesterday, the Applied Research Lab, which receives funding from the Pentagon's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, is also hoping to test the behavioral effects of sound at higher decibels, which could lead to a sonic blaster.

Last year, there was a lot of excitement about the Sheriff, a system that would combine a number of nonlethal technologies, such as a dazzling laser, sound beam and the pain ray. But what makes this new work significant is that there isn't a lot of hard data on sound weapons, let alone weapons that combine sound and light.



Klik!!!!

Lab Pushes for Sonic Blaster

 For all the talk of puke rays, sound weapons, blinding lasers, and pain beams, you'd think the military has an arsenal of nonlethal weapons at the ready. But they don't, mostly because without human testing, many nonlethal effects are anecdotal (and thus possibly ineffective), or, potentially dangerous.

At least for sound weapons, that now may be changing. A military-funded lab is pushing to get approval to conduct human testing at 130Db to see if, in that range, sound could have a "deterrent effect" (beyond just being loud and annoying). As Nicholas C. Nicholas, the Chief Scientist at Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory, said today at a nonlethal weapons conference. "Behavior modification is next logical step [in testing]," he said.

You would think for all the talk of acoustic weapons, there's tons of data. Not true, says Nicholas. There isn't really any reliable data on the effects on human as you move up the decibel range. The big problem is safety standards. "Current standards are far too conservative," argues Nicholas, whose lab works on a number of projects for the Pentagon's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate. OSHA standards, Nicholas says, are for occupational hazards that cover up to 30 years of exposure, and shouldn't be used for testing weapons.

Acoustic weapons have been written about so much that some people are likely to dismiss this news. But what Nicholas is talking about is precedent setting, because for all the talk about fancy sound weapons, scientists still don't know if you can you build a reliable nonlethal acoustic weapon.  There's flash bang grenades, but as Nicholas point out, those don't really do more than momentarily stun people. The Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) is primarily used a hailing device, and despite its much ballyhooed use to ward off pirates, Nicholas says that doesn't count as a weapon. Why not? The pirates still shot at the ship, Nicholas says, so it didn't effectively deter them. The military, in other words, doesn't yet have a sound weapon.

Acoustic weapons, like dazzling lasers, have the potential to do permanent damage. But Nicholas says that's a fact of life, telling the audience: "Some injury has to be tolerated or you cannot develop nonlethal weapons."

Welcome To The House Of Pain (Ray)

 Noah suggested yesterday that the Active Denial 'pain beam' is going to be a tough sell.  My piece in today's Wired News reveals that some people are more than willing to take up that challenge -- particularly in the home and law enforcement markets.

There have been, perhaps predictably, a lot of comments on how the police are going to use this to torture innocent people. To me, this suggests deeper issues that have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with uneasy relations between society and law enforcement. Police use of Active Denial might bring these issues into much sharper focus, but won't change matters. "Pain compliance" techniques exist already; this is simply a more sophisticated version. A successful law suit against the police for using pepper spray to cause pain to protesters to get them to move is likely to set the tone for the legal challenges involved.

But to to me, the patent for Active Denial as the ultimate in security protection shows much more potential. Raytheon filed the patent in 2004 -- perhaps a little prematurely, in view of delays in the Active Denial system's deployment. But it shows the system's potential to turn a room into a complete no-go zone for intruders, hitting them with a carefully-calibrated blast of millimeter-wave radiation which will make it utterly impossible for them to remain in the room. Clearly, they're aiming at the top end of the market here, the folks who already have infra-red beams and pressure plates: "may be used to guard a valuable item such as jewelry, weapons, or works or art, although the scope of the present invention is not limited in this respect." But as technology improves prices will drop and it will get more and more accessible.