The Air Force is ready to test its ground-based lasers – designed to take down unmanned drones – in a "contested environment," according to The Washington Post.
"What we really want to do is figure out how we can deploy these systems in an environment where our warfighters work and train every day," Evan Hunt, director of high energy laser and counter-UAS (unmanned aerial system) at Raytheon, told the Post.
The "directed-energy" weapon will be tested for 12 months in a "contested environment" outside of the United States under a $23 million contract with Raytheon, according to the report.
"The fact that it's a laser weapon allows you to put energy in target at the speed of light," the Air Force's Michael Jirjis, who leads directed energy experimentation, told the Post. "It can be an instantaneous heating event."
The lasers will be mounted on small ground vehicles and aimed with a video-game-like controller. The lasers are battery operated and are capable of firing constantly, since they do not waste ammunition, according to the report.
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