Law and Disorder

Post date: Jul 07, 2011 6:14:48 AM

DARPA 2: EXCALIBUR

In counterinsurgent, counter-terror campaigns, risks associated with conventional weapons in combat operations can severely limit their use and effectiveness, particularly in urban environments... risks [associated with] confining intended effects to adversary combatants and forces. Even in combat... consequences of collateral damage from conventional weapons [complicates] the mission. Laboratory and field testing of high-power laser systems indicate... functional affects against a variety of adversary targets and surgical precision... against certain air and ground targets. However, existing high-power chemical laser systems are too large and inefficient for deployment on tactical airborne platforms. To produce a weapons-grade system... output power must be increased without introducing additional optical phase noise and modal instability.

The DARPA Excalibur program will develop coherent optical phased array technologies to enable scalable laser weapons that are 10 times lighter and more compact than existing high-power chemical laser systems... with the same mission flexibility and performance enhancements that microwave phased arrays provide for RF systems. [An] Excalibur array may also perform laser radar, target designation, laser communications, and airborne-platform self protection tasks....

Beam-steering technologies will be pursued to make these arrays conformal with the airframe, provide rapid retargeting across a large field, and to compensate for the effects of atmospheric turbulence. The Excalibur program will demonstrate a high-power phased array of kW class fiber laser amplifiers and investigate the limits of active optical phase-locking onto uncooperative targets under realistic conditions.

PROGRAM MANAGER: Dr. Joseph Mangano

Once Excalibur’s technical objectives are achieved, it is envisioned that a coherent array of 10's of subapertures, each driven with a multi-kW coherently combinable fiber laser amplifiers, would enable ~100 kW class laser systems for precision strikes against both ground and air targets. This technology will enable the practical use of high-power lasers on a broad spectrum of military platforms without degradation of their original missions.

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Programs/EXCALIBUR.aspx

REALWORLD

The RealWorld program provides any U.S. warfighter with the ability to open a laptop computer and rehearse a specific mission in the relevant geo-specific terrain, with realistic physics. RealWorld is not a simulation; it is a simulation builder with applications across the spectrum of modern kinetic and non-kinetic warfare. The program is constructing tools that allow warfighters to rapidly and easily build their own missions though the introduction of new methodology for building simulation software. Because the system will be scalable and distributed, warfighters can practice by themselves, in small groups, or with as many other warfighters as needed for the mission over a local or distributed network, and across all relevant platforms (dismounts, vehicles, helicopters, fast movers).

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/RealWorld.aspx

Stockpile Stewardship Program Quarterly Experiments - May 2011

Information security diversion