TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Sensors, Electronics, Battlespace, Weapons

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-272, Tactical Aircraft Protection System; PMA-242

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Design, develop and fabricate a high energy, laser beam director that will be compatible with, and designed for use in, Navy manned and unmanned tactical aircraft.

DESCRIPTION: The development and improvement of solid state high energy lasers (SSHEL) and their consideration for weapon applications will require a laser beam director for pointing and slewing the beam to, and maintaining the beam on, the target. It has been stated that the airborne environment is one of the most stressing and severe for the application of high energy lasers as weapons. Thus the specifications for the beam director must be appropriate for the tactical platform of interest and compatible with the severity of the airborne environment. This application requires a very robust beam director with high dynamic capability to meet all the environmental and performance capabilities as well as being able to perform other missions. Since the target aperture of the beam director telescope is ~30 cm, it may also serve as an excellent surveillance tool when teamed with the acquisition sensor of the director. Laser power to be handled by a Navy tactical aircraft beam director is envisioned as scaling from 20 kW to 300 kW as SSHEL technology evolves. General capabilities include operation from 0-40,000 ft, platform speeds of M0.1-M1.4, optical throughput >90%, residual jitter <2 urad, operational laser wavelength 1.0-1.1 um, slew rate 2 rad/sec, slew acceleration 2 rad/sec^2, and residual wavefront error lambda/8 rms @ 1.06 um. Volume and weight of the full size beam director should be less than 0.20 cubic meter and 50 kilograms. Innovative unobscured designs that address performance as well as total cost of an operational beam director will receive consideration.

PHASE I: Determine feasibility of and develop a conceptual design for an appropriate high energy laser beam director that meets Navy tactical airborne requirements. The beam director design should include a gimbaled afocal telescope of approximately 10 X magnification suitable for integration to a hypothetical optics bench and HEL. Include methodology and prototype performance that will demonstrate the proposed concept at the specified performance and wavelength.

PHASE II: Develop detailed designs for the Phase I high energy laser beam director and fabricate a subscale breadboard suitable for proof of concept testing in a laboratory environment. Conduct preliminary testing demonstrating the subscale beam director capabilities and performance.

PHASE III: Develop and fabricate a full-scale high energy laser beam director brassboard. This brassboard will provide full-scale demonstration of all capabilities and will lead to a full-scale prototype demonstration unit. This prototype unit will be integrated with one of DoD�s SSHEL for field testing. Upon successful demonstration of its capability, it will transition to various Navy and Air Force airborne High Energy Laser (HEL) programs.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Since the beam director is a precision optical tracker with a large aperture, the application to surveillance and like areas would be the dominant commercial use. This same application could also be found in many areas within DoD.

REFERENCES:
1. Ultra lightweight off-axis three-mirror anastigmatic SiC visible telescope (SPIE Proceedings Paper) Author(s): Joseph L. Robichaud; Michael I. Anapol; Leo R. Gardner; Peter Hadfield.

2. Agile beam director system design: ROBS/TCATS optical tracker (SPIE Conference Proceedings Paper) Author(s): Brian W. Neff, Richard G. Trissel, Murray Dunn, et al. 5 October 1999; Vol: 3779.

KEYWORDS: High Energy Laser; Laser Weapons; Laser Beam Control; Laser Beam Director; Optical Gimbal; Afocal Telescope

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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