We have known for a long time that engineers and scientists belonging to the United States Government are working for the Army of the country in a project where it is intended to develop laser weapon capable of shooting down drones in a minimum space of time, a project that seems to be beginning to bear fruit according to the latest information about it that has been published.
Going into a little more detail, this project is being carried out in the facilities of one of the usual suppliers of the United States Army such as Lockheed Martin, same that has created what they have baptized as ATHENA, a powerful laser weapon of 30 kilowatts of power that now, after many months of development, in its latest version, is capable of shoot down a drone in just a few seconds.
The US Army's laser weapon is capable of shooting down large drones in just several seconds
To make this improvement possible, we talk about the fact that the time it took to shoot down a drone in mid-flight has been reduced to almost half, the engineers have made use of a new turbo generator manufactured by the Rolls-Royce company. As a detail, tell you that the drones used to carry out the test of this laser weapon are large vehicles, on a few 3,3 meters from tip to tip of the wings so it is not the typical commercial quadcopter that we are used to.
As commented Keoki jackson, current director of technology within the multinational Lockheed Martin:
As the technology behind laser weapon systems matures and becomes more effective, we are getting closer to creating a weapon that will offer the best possible protection to our fighters, by disposing of threats from a greater distance.