Mary-Louise Hoffman
An independent measurement organization has tested the beam quality and power of a General Atomics-built tactical laser system for the Defense Department.
General Atomics’ aeronautical systems group designed the Gen 3 High-Energy Laser System to integrate with aerial, ground and naval platforms, the company said Wednesday.
Testers used a government diagnostic system from DoD’s Joint Technology Office to evaluate the laser technology.
JTO official Jack Slater said Gen 3’s beam quality scored the highest among all the high-energy lasers that have been put through GDS, noting that it “remained constant with increasing output power and run time.”
According to General Atomics, the Gen 3 HEL platform is built with a compact lithium-ion battery and designed to blast out at least 50 kilowatts of energy.
