Laser Weapon System Research Articles

Military laser weapons: Current controversies

Military laser weapons systems are becoming indispensable in most modern armies. These lasers have undergone many stages of development, and have outpaced research on eye protection measures, which continue to have inherent limitations. Eye injuries caused by military lasers are increasingly reported, leading to speculation that these would become an important cause of blinding in modern conflicts. As part of the effort to ban inhumane weapons, international laws have been passed to restrict the proliferation of such blinding weapons. However, there are controversies concerning the interpretation, implementation and effectiveness of these laws. The ophthalmic community can play a greater role in highlighting ocular morbidity from military lasers, and in preventing their further proliferation.

The Legal Status of Laser Weapons That Blind

In response to growing concerns over the production, deployment, and use of laser weapons that cause blinding, the international community in 1995 convened an international conference to restrict the use and transfer of blinding laser weapons. The result was the Fourth Additional Protocol to the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. In doing so, a significant step was taken towards restricting the intentional blinding of combatants in time of war. This article provides a review of the process by which the Fourth Additional Protocol was drafted and an analysis of its legal impact on the use of laser weapon systems.

Navy High Energy Laser Weapon System

ABSTRACTThis paper will historically review and describe the Navy High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS).Advances in anti‐ship cruise missiles (ASMs), which present the greatest challenge in surface ship self defense, are necessitating the development of significantly more sophisticated and expensive surface‐to‐air missiles in order to counter the threat. The next generation of ASMs, as represented by the French ANS, will be capable of skimming only meters above the sea surface at multi‐mach speeds, while performing evasive maneuvers during terminal run‐in. This type of threat has essentially eliminated naval gun systems from the role of ship self‐defense, and has significantly reduced the effectiveness of current missile systems.Under development for the past twenty years, the High Energy Chemical Laser appears to be a feasible solution to the ship self‐defense problem. Capable of operating effectively in all weather conditions except dense fog, a HELWS requires no conventional fire control solution, since it operates at the speed of light. Any target that can be tracked can be engaged. Furthermore, once the beam director is locked onto a target, the system is insensitive to target maneuvers. By tailoring the lase period to the threat, the effective Pk of an HELWS is essentially 1. Using chemical energy as a primary power source removes the requirement for additional costly and heavy power generation equipment aboard ship. In the context of the foregoing arguments, cost per kill becomes a fraction of the cost of a two‐round missile salvo.The technology required to field a shipboard HELWS has been demonstrated by the Navy Mid‐InfraRed Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) and the Sea Lite Beam Director (SLBD). Its success in bringing down a Mach 2.2 Vandal missile in 1989 was dramatic proof of the effectiveness of such a system. Recent studies have shown that the MIRACL/SLBD can be repackaged as a HELWS to fit into the equivalent volume occupied by a 5“/54 Mk 45 gun mount and its associated magazine. Replacing the gun system with this HELWS package would result in a 15 percent reduction in weight and translate to a 5 percent improvement in ship stability because of the weight redistribution.The one remaining issue is an operational demonstration of the High Energy Laser Weapon System in a shipboard environment. The Navy is currently studying the possibility of conducting an advanced technology demonstration of a shipboard HELWS to begin in FY 95. Such a demonstration will be designed to resolve the remaining issues associated with using high energy lasers for self‐defense at sea.

A methodology for analyzing laser-induced structural damage

The analysis of laser-induced structural damage requires the merging of a thermal analysis which includes the characterization of the laser damage with a structural analysis which enables the determination of the deformation and the residual load carrying ability. Three types of laser-induced damage are considered: loss of structure due to melting, change of material properties due to temperature changes, and addition of load due to thermal stress. The thermal solution is calculated from a set of finite difference equations obtained from heat balances performed at successive finite time increments on an array of finite cells. The structural analysis is performed by a re-analysis technique, applicable when changes in structural stiffness are small compared to the initial value. The combined procedure for evaluating laser damage is applied to two structures, representing two levels of complexity. The first was a simple two-dimensional plate and the second a three-dimensional wing structure. The displacement solutions were compared to results obtained from NASTRAN to determine the accuracy of the iterative solution technique. The procedure was found to be efficient, and permits the parametric studies needed for a-priori estimates of the effectiveness of potential laser weapons systems. 10 references.

Too soon to build laser weapons systems

Too soon to build laser weapons systems