Rheinmetall Waffe - Laser Weapon Demonstrator
On 28 January 2021 Germany’s Federal Office for Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) awarded a consortium consisting of MBDA Deutschland GmbH and Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH a contract to fabricate, integrate and support testing of a laser weapon demonstrator in the maritime environment. The order value is in the low double-digit million euro range. The laser weapon demonstrator is to be fabricated, tested and integrated by the end of the 2021. Trials onboard the German Navy frigate F-124 Sachsen are to take place in 2022.
Mini drones represent a new type of threat demanding the consideration of new solutions, beyond conventional effectors. Recent incidents have seen mini drones disrupting high profile events and flying over protected locations. Highly precise and scalable laser weapon systems could protect major events and critical infrastructures and close a current capability gap. MBDA’s successes in technology have led to the development of a high energy laser weapon demonstrator. Since 2008, MBDA Deutschland has developed and successfully tested a high energy laser weapon demonstrator against a broad range of threats, including rapidly manoeuvre, highly dynamic targets such as mini-UAVs.
At the heart of MBDA Deutschland’s technology demonstrator is a multi-stage, highly precise tracker and laser effector that bundles numerous laser sources into a single laser beam using the principle of geometric coupling.This approach makes it possible to combat small, highly agile targets reliably with a single laser effector.
The development of HEL technology began in the 1990s of the last century under the US Army's Enhanced Area Air Defense System, which aimed at combining kinetic and directed energy systems to combat air and RAM threats. “It was still too early in time then,” said Fabian Ochsner, vice president of marketing at Rheinmetall Air Defense. "During operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this technology was not yet ready for deployment."
Despite the fact that the ground-based version of the Phalanx short-range ship complex with C-RAM capabilities (intercepting unguided missiles, artillery shells and mines) was deployed among the troops, the American army closed this program. However, Rheinmetall decided to develop HEL technology for the requirements of C-RAM and ground-based air defense (GBAD), based on the analytical reports obtained in its early studies.
The Australian GBAD Capability Study from 2008 outlined various threat scenarios, the most difficult of which is protecting an airfield deep inside its territory from various types of air attacks, including UAVs. In addition, a 2012 NATO study (NIAG SG-170), which is yet to be published, details "GBAD destruction of slow and low-flying small airborne threats" and highlighted the UAV threat based on an analysis of a set of scenarios, including terrorist attacks.
In 2010, the company Rheinmetall HEL prototype set power of 5 kW to the platform Mantis C-RAM, then in 2011 produced 10-kW laser technological demonstrator consisted of two 5-kW laser modules turret Skyshield, connected to the sensor unit Skyguard 3. In 2012, two more technological prototypes were manufactured with beam powers of 20 kW and 30 kW. Accordingly, five high-power 10 kW lasers provided the total power of these two installations of 50 kW. In a series of tests conducted at the end of the same year, the demo successfully cut a 15 mm steel beam at a distance of 1 km, successfully detected, tracked and destroyed the UAV at a distance of 2 km, and also destroyed a steel ball 82 mm in diameter (simulated mortar shell) flying at a speed of 50 m / s.
In 2013, Rheinmetall showed a technological prototype of a next-generation high-power laser at its test site in Switzerland. The development of such systems, proceeding by leaps and bounds, can significantly change future combat capabilities. Rheinmetall showcased its advances in HEL (high-energy laser) technology at the Oxenboden artillery range in Switzerland in late October 2013. The tests included “shelling” several vertical take-off UAVs from mobile and stationary HEL prototypes at once, as well as targets in the form of artillery shells, mortar ammunition and unguided rockets (RAM –rocket, artillery and mortar).
On 27 November 2015, a German company announced a powerful new laser "Gatling gun." At the London Defense and Security Expo, German defense contractor Rheinmetall Defense Electronics unveiled this new maritime combat system. The company said that it can be used as part of a new maritime anti-UAV laser system, loaded on board for combat.
Four laser transmitters with a power of 20 kilowatts each fire at the same time, using a technique called "superposition" to combine to obtain a powerful beam with a power of 80 kilowatts. It is said that the Gatling laser gun can hit drones 500 meters away. Lasers can also detonate explosives and shells, make sensors on other ships malfunction, and even burn holes in smaller ships. The company claims that by combining each laser gun unit, they can release "unlimited" energy.
"Each unit that forms a laser beam has limited diffraction technology, target imaging technology and precise target tracking technology." The company said, "By using beam superposition technology, Rheinmetall's products can hit the energy of a laser To a small spot." This technology is not only suitable for the superposition of multiple lasers on a single laser gun platform, but also for the superposition of multiple platforms.
"This allows it to output laser beams with nearly infinite power (such as 100 kilowatts or more), thereby meeting the increasing demand for air defense." At the London Expo, the company demonstrated an Oerlikon anti-aircraft turret equipped with a high-energy laser effector, and a newly developed high-energy laser effector for naval operations. "The high-energy laser effector has the advantages of high precision, scalability, suitable for a variety of combat situations, and can be used on land and sea. It will occupy an important place in the future armament family." The company said.
"Adhering to the unique concept of forming multiple high-energy laser beams by superimposition and the excellent technique of concentrating energy on a small point, in this latest field, Rheinmetall has played a leading role among European defense contractors. ."
"After six years of constant progress, Rheinmetall has launched a new air defense application-shooting down drones, which has attracted worldwide attention and interest." UAVs are a low-altitude, slow-speed, and small-sized threat source, which is likely to create an imbalance between traditional defenders and attackers who use UAVs.
Some emerging tasks, such as the defense against high-visibility events, pose huge challenges to the existing air defense system. Only by using high-energy laser effectors can these problems be solved. It uses Oerlikon’s “Sky Shield” or “Sky Soldier” fire control unit for target acquisition and weapon control. At the same time, it uses a rotating turret equipped with a high-energy laser effector and is equipped with an Oerlikon high-energy laser gun.
Each high-energy laser effector contains a 10 kilowatt fiber laser and a beam forming unit. Commercial fiber lasers have been modified to be suitable for air defense. This technology can also be used in ground operations and maritime operations through corresponding adjustments.
In recent decades technological advances have led to a rapid increase in the numbers, types and capabilities of weapons systems that can threaten naval platforms. Specifically, threats are posed by small UAVs and USVs. The proliferation of these inexpensive asymmetric threats poses a challenge for current concepts of operation and highlights the difficulties in utilising comparatively expensive kinetic weapons with limited magazine capacity in countering these threats.
On 02 May 2019 the European Defence Agency invited submitting tenders in response to a call for tenders for the award of public contract ED420190401 for the Provision of a Study on the Use of Directed Energy Weapons on Board Naval Ships Against Unmanned Vehicles. The maximum value of the contract is EUR 150 000. The study is to focus on two elements of DEW, Laser systems and High-Power Electromagnetic Microwaves (HPEM). Such technologies can be utilised to engage in an accurate, graduated and environmentally responsible manner. Kinetic weapons currently dominate the arsenals of naval vessels; however, this primacy is being challenged by advances in Directed Energy Weapons (DEW).
Over the last decade significant work was undertaken in the development of more compact DEW in the RADAR frequency regime and specifically with high power laser demonstrators. Sea trials have been performed within the EU and the US, that have tested this new class of DEW. Naval ships offer the necessary power supply, space for integration and unobstructed application at sea. In the short-term it is anticipated that DEW can complement conventional weapons on board ships. The potential to yield cost effective systems that can deliver precise and scalable effects with a potentially unlimited magazine capacity represents a considerable enhancement in naval platform capabilities. The continuing development and eventual deployment of more capable DEW can diminish operational risk, create improved self-defence and warfighting options and ultimately enable new operational courses of action.
Integrating DEW as elements of a broader force package will require adjustments across the doctrinal, organisational, training, logistics and policy fronts. The study is required to provide more clarity to Naval forces and material organisations in the evaluation of the possibilities and restrictions of DEW technologies for the defence against small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs).
DEW typically work at close ranges of a few kilometres. Small unmanned systems can operate at distances offshore as well as in harbours. Additionally, they may be launched and coordinated from platforms offshore enabling their use against high value targets or convoys in the open sea.
Recent developments in solid-state and fibre lasers, in addition to other technologies such as chemical, free electron and liquid lasers, designed primarily for industrial purposes, feature moderate power systems designed for forward-deployable platforms, such as naval vessels. They afford the delivery of capabilities ranging from simple jamming and the destruction of the optoelectronic devices right up to material structure destruction. Technical challenges include power-scaling, beam quality and thermal management and packaging. To create an effective weapon, the DE system must be integrated into a complete system that can acquire, track and destroy targets and is fully incorporated with the carrying platforms power, control, and other systems.
The challenges facing naval decision makers will be the integration of DEW on Naval platforms and to ensure complementarity with both existing systems and with concepts of operations. The study is to consider power supplies of no more than 30 KW, this being the limit of current development programmes. Such power levels ensure suitability for soft kill, UAVs and USVs at short ranges (several hundred metres up to the kilometre range).
Electronic components are extremely sensitive to microwave emissions, especially the integrated circuits, microelectronics and components found in modern electronic systems. HPEM offers the capability that ranges from the jamming of an electronic system right up to its destruction. The effects are dependent upon the power generated by the HPEM, the target distance, the characteristics of the microwave emission and the vulnerability of the enemy target. HPEM are also insensitive to weather, however any integration of such system will have to consider the effects on the host platform.
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