France funding combat laser for wing mounted pod for French Dassault Rafale fighter

Quantel Laser (Paris, France) has been awarded a $7-million, multi-year contract by a Tier 1 defense contractor to supply lasers to be built into a wing-mounted fighter aircraft pod, such as on the French Dassault Rafale fighter. The military aircraft lasers will provide critical telemetry as well as target designation functions.

Quantel designs and manufactures high-power, solid-state lasers for scientific, industrial, military, and medical applications. This contract covers a specific production series of lasers and follows Quantel’s successful development of the compact, ruggedized laser source as well as delivery of several earlier production runs.

There is a lot of work by the USA, China, Russia, India and others on combat lasers for planes, trucks, ships and other vehicles.

The General Atomics 150-kw Hellads (high energy laser) will be tested this summer at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico The third generation solid state laser is to be demonstrated in 2018 on the USS Paul Foster, a decommissioned Spruance-class destroyer that now serves as the U.S. Navy’s ship-defense test vessel at Port Hueneme in California.

The Gen 3 (third generation laser) has increased electrical-to-optical efficiency, improved beam quality and further reduced size and weight.

The module includes high-power-density lithium-ion batteries, liquid cooling for the laser and batteries, one or more laser unit cells and optics to clean up and stabilize the beam before it enters the platform-specific beam-director telescope, says Davis.

The unit cell is a laser oscillator that produces a single 75-kw beam. Modules can be ganged together to produce a 150- or 300-kw beam.

The next step is a 120-kw laser, planned for testing in the early 2020s, and for which GA-ASI plans to propose the Gen 3 system. The Air Force Research Laboratory, meanwhile, is interested in a podded laser weapon, although there is no formal program yet.

Davis says the Gen 3’s size enables an airborne laser module in the 150-kw range to be carried by GA-ASI’s Avenger unmanned aircraft. The UAV has sufficient onboard power to recharge the module’s batteries in flight.