War is the engine of many economies and, unfortunately, also the locomotive of technological development. The development of drones, surveillance systems and artificial intelligence are factors that could drag us into a new cold war (if we are not already in it, of course), and it is precisely in recent years that laser weapons have ceased to be something exclusive to science fiction.

In 2014, the US Navy approved the use of an experimental laser weapon to attack drones, helicopters and patrol ships, and there were plans to arm US troops with laser weapons by 2023. In recent years, laser weapons have become relatively common, perhaps as a countermeasure to something we saw in the Ukraine war: kamikaze drones.

Laser guns. Although different military forces have been looking for years at the best way to incorporate laser weapons into their equipment, this year we have seen a real explosion in this segment. An example of this is everything we have seen about the DragonFire, a laser weapon that, according to the British Ministry of Defence, can hit a coin from a kilometer away. And it is very cheap, at a price of only 11 euros per shot.

In 2018, China boasted of having a laser rifle that could instantly char human skin, while the US has invested billions of dollars in laser weapons that it is already using in combat, and Russia itself has a laser cannon that can melt a drone in five seconds.

Kamikaze drones. The problem with this laser weapon that is currently in use is that it is designed for combat and reconnaissance drones. That is, unmanned vehicles. Their movements are predictable and quite large. What the fighters on the Ukrainian front discovered is that commercial drones are being used to carry out suicide attacks.

Both sides in the conflict are launching attacks with commercial drones, and while the Ukrainians have found a solution (stick-mounted drones attacking the Russian drones’ propellers), for Russia these drones continue to be a problem. They come in all varieties: drones loaded with grenades and releasing them when they hit the target, FPV drones that precisely track their moving targets, and others that look for open tanks ahead to sneak in and blow them up, right on top of the explosives.

GLARE LA-9/P

dazzling. Russia has some tanks on the battlefield armed with countermeasures, but as all the videos they’ve collected from The War Zone show, these drones pose a real problem for both Russian armored vehicles and other units. The solution? Laser cannons, but not as you might imagine, capable of tearing apart a drone, while lasers are blinding and incapacitating.

These lasers would be more powerful versions of a commercial laser (greatly scaled down), but less powerful than weapons capable of melting a drone. Known as ‘dazzlers’, they are a more versatile and easier to equip device. An example of this is the BE Meyers GLARE LA-9/P, currently in service on US Navy surface ships. It has an attacker field of view of up to 500 metres and a warning system with a range of 4 km at night and 1.5 km during the day.

Infinite ammo. One advantage of these lasers is that they are powered by batteries, so there is no charger and the potential is endless as long as they are replaced. The purpose of such weapons is the positioning and vision systems of commercial drones. This is because these drones, which are not intended for military use, have a recognition system consisting of conventional cameras and sometimes infrared systems.

These are the elements that facilitate navigation and in FPV drones the cameras are directly the eyes of the operators (an FPV drone is a drone controlled with a system similar to virtual reality and an operator sees with glasses and sees everything through the drone cameras). Disabling these optical systems for a while can cause the drone to malfunction, especially when moving at high speed, since there is a high probability of hitting an object or getting stuck in a tree.

This T90 has the Shtora-1 system on both sides of the barrel

This is not new. Disabling your cameras is also useful when it comes to a recreational drone focused on exploration, and as well as lasers, there are already units that use frequency blocking systems, especially on FPV drones, which cut off any immediate contact between the operator and the vehicle.

However, the Soviet Union had been working on a similar system before. In the late 1980s, there were no non-military drones, but there were guided missiles and laser rangefinders. The Soviets developed the Shtora-1 system, an electro-optical active protection suite designed to disrupt enemy optical systems. It was installed on the still active Russian T-80 and T-90 tanks, as well as on the currently Ukrainian T-84.

The Shtora-1 had a smoke grenade system to block enemy infrared light, but it also had an infrared light system mounted on the sides of the main gun, which emitted pulses to disrupt enemy systems.

DJI Mavic Mini teardownSomething like this might not be very effective due to the nature of current drones, but as TWZ points out, BAE Systems offers something similar to the Shtora-1, a system that can be mounted on vehicles and protects against missiles, but can also be used against drones.

Australian company Electro Optic Systems has the Laser Dazzler, a system that can directly disrupt, reject and destroy the electro-optic sensors of drones. The company claims that this system uses a non-lethal laser with no side effects, but below is what the DJI Mavic Mini looks like after being targeted by the Dazzler:

In both cases, it is clear that both armies and militias are employing tactics that catch their opponents off guard. The use of these kamikaze drones is a drama for both Russian and Ukrainian forces, but we have also seen Houthi rebels use these tactics to attack ships in the Red Sea. Something like laser dazzlers could be a solution to commercial drones used in warfare.

Image | Dmitry Terekhov from Odintsovo, BE Meyers

In Xataka | Russia has resorted to a technology that is more than 150 years old in its war with drones and hypersonic missiles: Morse code