Jerry Petersen
A three-week field test of the Counter-Electronic High-Power Microwave Extended-Range Air Base Defense system, or CHIMERA, recently took place at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
RTX business Raytheon said Monday that it had conducted the test in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, with whom the company is working alongside Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to develop CHIMERA under the Directed Energy Front-line Electromagnetic Neutralization and Defeat program.
CHIMERA is a high-power microwave weapon that works to eliminate multiple middle-to-long-range targets using highly concentrated radio energy. During the test, the HPM system acquired aerial targets and tracked them throughout their flight. The system also used directed energy against multiple static target variations.
Shery Welsh, chief of the directed energy directorate at AFRL, described partnerships with industry like the one with Raytheon as “imperative” because they can result in “critical technology that can be inserted in an integrated mission architecture alongside other directed energy tech and kinetics.”
For his part, Raytheon Advanced Technology President Colin Whelan said the recent CHIMERA test shows a “strong partnership” between AFRL and his organization. As for CHIMERA itself, Whelan said HPMs “are cost-effective and reliable solutions that play an important role in layered defense.”
