High-power Adaptive Directed Energy System Compact Max Efficiency (HADES-CME)

The Nutronics, Inc. High-power Adaptive Directed Energy System (HADES) High Energy Laser (HEL) weapon system architecture has been proven at 25 kW class with efficiency of 35-40% and offers an innovative means to integrate the HEL with the Beam Control System (BCS). This in turn provides significant reductions in size, weight, and power consumption for the HEL weapon system. HADES naturally offers a path to continue to reduce the size, weight, and power consumption for the supporting thermal and power subsystem as the efficiency of high power fiber lasers continues to improve with continuing advancements in pump diode efficiency. A change in the configuration of the high power fiber amplifier sources used in HADES coupled with an associated configuration change for HADES can lead to an immediate improvement in efficiency, with a projected improvement to 45-50%. Our proposed Phase 1 effort investigates the size and weight trades associated with the HEL+BCS focusing on the impact on the thermal and power subsystem (projections are that a 20-30% reduction in weight can be realized). The advantages of our proposed approach are clear in that we directly leverage a proven integrated and compact solution, reducing the timeline to implementation and potential transition.