Mckinney, Texas. 12 August 2019. Raytheon is developing two prototypes of high energy laser weapon systems for the US Air Force under a contract, which later will deploy overseas under USAF command, Air Force will experiment the systems for 12 months where high energy system will be tested against unmanned aerial systems and operator training. Raytheon’s advanced high power microwave and high energy laser weapon systems successfully destroyed dozens of unmanned aerial system targets in a recent U.S. Air Force demonstration.
“Every day, there’s another story about a rogue drone incident. These threats aren’t going away, and in many instances, shooting them with a high energy laser weapon system is the most effective and safest way to bring them down,” commented Stefan Baur, Vice-President of Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems.
The contract follows successful demonstrations of Raytheon’s directed energy systems for the Air Force and the US Army. The high energy laser weapon uses pure energy to detect, identify and instantly take down a single UAV or slow moving air target with better accuracy and HELWS is paired with Raytheon‘s Multi-spectral Targeting System, It throwing an invisible beams of light to destroy hostile UAVs. Mounted on a Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicle, the system detects, identifies, tracks and engages drones.
