Lockheed Martin [LMT] said it successfully demonstrated a portable, ground-based military laser called the Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) system in a series of tests against representative airborne targets.
The company developed ADAM to defend against short-range threats such as rockets and unmanned aerial systems.
“Lockheed Martin plans to conduct additional testing over the next few months,” Lynn Fisher, a company spokeswoman, told Defense Daily. “We have demonstrated that the 10-kilowatt laser, when focused by our proprietary beam control software, has sufficient power to negate the close-in, short-range threats against which the ADAM system is designed to defend. As we address more complex threats, we will evaluate the need for more powerful laser devices.”
The Army and Navy particularly are interested in lasers with military power levels as a speed-of-light weapon system complementary to other battlefield systems. The Army has always been clear that directed energy systems will always have a human in the loop, as do air defense systems.
“Lockheed Martin has invested in the development of the ADAM system because of the enormous potential effectiveness of high-energy lasers,” said Doug Graham, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of advanced programs for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems, in a Nov. 27 statement. “We are committed to supporting the transition of directed energy’s revolutionary capability to the war fighter.”
Defense companies such as Northrop Grumman [NOC], Raytheon [RTN], and Boeing [BA] in the United States and MBDA in Europe have long pursued development and demonstration of various lasers.
“Lockheed Martin developed the ADAM system to provide a practical directed energy solution to the real-world problem of close-in threats, such as improvised rockets and unmanned aerial systems, faced in high-value areas, such as forward operating bases,” Fisher said. “Lockheed Martin based the design on commercial hardware paired with our beam control architecture and software to provide the performance needed for these types of threats without the cost and time required for full custom development. ADAM is designed specifically to provide an affordable capability against the rapidly proliferating “low end” threats such as rockets and unmanned aerial systems. Some of the other prototype systems under development are more powerful, complex and expensive than the ADAM system.”
Since August, the ADAM system has successfully engaged an unmanned aerial system target in flight at a range of approximately 1.5 kilometers and has destroyed four small-caliber rocket targets in simulated flight at a range of approximately 2 kilometers.
Designed for short-range defense of high-value areas including forward operating bases, the ADAM system’s 10-kilowatt fiber laser is engineered to destroy targets up to 2 kilometers away. The system precisely tracks targets in cluttered optical environments and has a tracking range of more than 5 kilometers.
Also, the system has been designed to be flexible enough to operate against rockets as a standalone system and to engage unmanned aerial systems with an external radar cue. The ADAM system’s modular architecture combines commercial hardware components with the company’s proprietary software in an integrated and easy-to-operate system.
“Lockheed Martin has applied its expertise as a laser weapon system integrator to provide a practical and affordable defense against serious threats to military forces and installations,” said Paul Shattuck, Lockheed Martin’s director of directed energy systems for Strategic and Missile Defense Systems. “In developing the ADAM system, we combined our proven laser beam control architecture with commercial hardware to create a capable, integrated laser weapon system.”
Fisher said, “We believe that the ADAM system can help to address a number of the emerging military service requirements for defense against short-range threats. This will depend on the specific requirements for each service program. We look forward to working with our customers to see how the ADAM system, or evolved versions of the ADAM system, can meet their needs.”
Lockheed Martin has a history in high-energy laser development and made key advances in areas such as precision pointing and control, line-of-sight stabilization and adaptive optics.