Broadly Tunable Localized RF Bursts for Remote Electronic Denial

Electronic denial is a critical capability when combating new and evolving threats including UAS engagement and surveillance, agile rockets, artillery, and mortars, and long-range missiles. The current systems relying upon direct generation of radio and microwave frequencies require large and complex architectures and provide limited frequency tunability for high-power narrow-band outputs. The long wavelengths used in these systems limit the directionality and focusing capabilities at extended ranges, reducing the total electromagnetic intensity on target. In contrast, propagation of optical frequencies enables much more concentrated energy deposition, especially with recent advances in adaptive atmospheric compensation. While continuous-wave lasers are the primary optical source of directed energy technology, there is merit in pursuing the capabilities of high-average power, high-peak power pulsed optical sources. Pulsed lasers are capable of delivering localized, tunable, and highly-concentrated RF bursts directly to the target. Their high intensities facilitate plasma generation either on the target itself or in the surrounding media; subsequent modulation of this plasma by following pulses results in controllable RF waveforms, which have been shown to possess single-shot denial of small drones and robust circuit disruption. The burst-mode lasers developed at Spectral Energies are ideal candidates for scaling this promising capability to practical, multi-platform realizations.