The U.S. Army is taking delivery of a 60 kilowatt-class laser from Lockheed Martin as the company wraps up demonstrations of the capability.
“In testing earlier this month, the Lockheed Martin laser produced a single beam of 58kW, representing a world record for a laser of this type,” the company said in a statement Thursday.
Lockheed was contracted to deliver the combined fiber laser for the Army’s Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, or HEMTT, the largest vehicle in the Army inventory, after previously testing a 10-kW laser on the platform.
Once the laser is integrated, that becomes the High Energy Laser Mobile Test Truck. Boeing is doing the integration work.
The laser system has “proved to be highly efficient in testing,” the company stated, “capable of translating more than 43 percent of the electricity that powered it directly into the actual laser beam it emitted."
The more powerful laser brings together individual lasers “generated through fiber optics, to generate a single, intense laser beam,” Lockheed explained, which allows for it to be scaled up in power by adding more fiber laser sub-units.
LINK to article & pics @ DEFENSE NEWS:
US Army gets world record-setting 60-kW laser