WaRS Shoots Down Drone Using Laser

Naval Sea Systems Command, with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, for the second time successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle while in flight. This marks the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario. Comments left by low-information viewers criticize the accomplishment because a slow-flying drone target was used vs. a real-life target like a missile. These are the same types who said the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka 'Star Wars') would never work, but now the technology regularly intercepts rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Moving object tracking and targeting systems, among other aspects of the research, has benefitted many technologies from automatic car parking to Earth-threatening asteroid monitoring, and, eventually, interception.

Posted  April 2013