Research Summaries

Back High Energy Weapon Physics-Based Analysis for Naval Platforms

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Colson, William B.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary Objectives:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of HEL weapons against various targets (both hard and soft kills), for various ranges and atmospheric conditions, and compare their effectiveness to kinetic weapons.
- What are the relative merits of deploying a kinetic only solution, an HEL only solution, and a solution that combines both? In the last case, can kinetic and HEL weapons compliment each other and be more effective that either alone for different scenarios?
- The physical limitations imposed by obscuration from the secondary mirror in the beam director and thermal blooming in the atmosphere can reduce the energy deposited on the target from an HEL weapon. Can coherent beam shaping by constructive and destructive interference of only two low-order modes mitigate these adverse effects? If so, how does this affect overall performance of an HEL weapon relative to kinetic weapons?
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal