Research Summaries

Back Quantifying HEL Weapon System Performance through a Layer of Fog or Low Level Clouds

Fiscal Year 2018
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Chen, Hway-Jen
Jonsson, Haflidi H.
Wang, Qing
Yamaguchi, Ryan T.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary This topic is of particular importance to the technological development and operation of high energy laser (HEL) weapons. US military forces have demonstrated the capability of a 10-kW high-energy laser to track and engage a variety of targets under adverse, laser-unfriendly weather conditions over the maritime environment, such as fog, rain, and high wind. However, there has been little effort devoted to develop a quantitative understanding of fog/cloud parameters affecting present day laser system beam propagation at these power levels. Understanding these effects is critical for predicting effectiveness in engaging advisories with a given confidence and range under fog/cloud conditions. The proposed research intends to address this topic using multiple methods: field measurements, data analyses, and collaboration with other DOD entities with complementary facility/projects. We intend to involve NPS students in this research in all project stages and engage a broad range of students in this research topic through relevant courses with the most up-to-date knowledge in the latest research advancements pertaining to atmospheric effects on HEL weapons. Laser weapons will encounter substantial scattering in conditions such as fog and clouds. These effects need to be characterized in terms of descriptive quantities for fog and clouds from a meteorological forecast model outputs or routine ship- or surface-based measurements. In addition, although the absorption extinction coefficient of hydrometeors for the visible wavelength is generally small, the massive incident energy from a HEL beam potentially leads to substantial absorption and results in modifications to cloud/fog layer properties and hence the HEL propagation. This indirect effect of the fog/cloud layer on HEL propagation should also be investigated. Lastly, strong turbulence is present in fog/clouds with large temperature perturbations. The impacts of fog/cloud optical turbulence have not been investigated.
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