BlueHalo has said that it has delivered its LOCUST Laser Weapon System (LWS) for integration with the Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) system.

The US Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) devised the P-HEL programme to combat the threat of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) with a counter-sUAS (C-sUAS) prototype.

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The programme is supported by the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO).

As part of the initiative, the JCO seeks to test the P-HEL in a relevant environment at the Yuma Proving Grounds (YPG). This will be followed by further assessments and the potential deployment of the system overseas.

The company said that the LOCUST system, after integration, performed well during a recent event.

BlueHalo sector president Dan Gillings said: “Our laser weapon is a key part of BlueHalo’s LOCUST family of products that leverage decades of experience on a wide variety of directed energy weapon programs, dating back to the Airborne Laser, Airborne Tactical Laser, and High Energy Laser Mobile demonstrator, culminated by our investments in the laser weapon system.”

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The LOCUST LWS is based on modular, open-systems architecture. It can detect targets and features an electronic warfare standoff capability, along with a scalable high energy laser (HEL) effector, to support interception.

BlueHalo CEO Jonathan Moneymaker said: “BlueHalo’s mature LOCUST system provides proven ‘laser quality’ precision electro-optic/infrared, pointing, tracking, identification, and hard-kill against a wide variety of Unmanned Aerial Systems.

“Even more impressive is the fact that it does this while also serving as a highly capable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data collection and discrimination asset.”

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