WATCH: New Laser Gun Blasts Drones From the Sky
New tactical laser from Boeing can toast enemy drones in mid-air.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1143560534001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAukPAlqE~,oAVq1qtdRjy50BF2MoxbX8ZeW4dvR47I&bctid=4444457550001
Boeing’s weapons division has been building and refining death rays–the manufacturer prefers the more modest “directed energy” — for a few years now. Their latest innovation is firing a relatively portable ray gun at what seems like its natural prey: UAVs, or military drones.
Hackread’s write-up of the newest sci-fi wrinkle in the drone wars outlines the innocuous-looking Compact Laser Weapons System’s lightweight specs. The “transportable laser cannon,” Hackread reports, weighs a mere 650 lbs, can be put together in less than 30 minutes, “and produces an energy beam of 10kw, which can bring down a target 22 miles away.”
Hackread goes on to say that since the gun “is precise, silent, portable and above all.. invisible,” it is a real “game-changer.”
Boeing’s brief post about the system–which they’ve dubbed LWS — says a recent test at Point Mugu in California was a “milestone” because the LWS was able to target and disable a “a moving, untethered unmanned aerial vehicle.”
So here’s where we are in the coming Drone Apocalypse: the average guy faced with, say, a pistol-bearing quadcopter or Taser-bearing police drone might potentially be able to fend off the attack with shotgun shells designed to target drones. And if a UAV pilot goes off-reservation at the helm of a military drone, his brains scrambled by too much Virtual Reality Racing in off-hours, Boeing is making ready with its “water-cooled” and battery-powered laser beam.
The future is full of terrifying flying things and beams of focused fire, and an awful lot of fun.
Photos by Screen capture from video
Read This Next
