Singapore Airshow: Rafael launches Iron Beam
Citat:The land-based system, which was unveiled at the Singapore Airshow on 11 February, uses a pair of multi-kilowatt solid-state lasers to defeat incoming projectiles out to a range of about 2 km, a company official told IHS Jane's .
The mobile Iron Beam battery is comprised of an air defence radar, a command and control (C2) unit, and two HEL systems, Senderovits Ezra, deputy general manager of marketing and business development at Rafael, explained. The company-supplied imagery of the truck-mounted battery shows these various components housed in ISO shipping containers, although the actual configuration of the Iron Beam would depend on the customer's requirements.
"It is currently a truck-mounted system that is being used as a testbed, but it could just as easily be fitted to an armoured vehicle or some other configuration", Ezra said.
Once the Iron Beam's air defence radar (any radar will suffice, Ezra noted) acquires an incoming projectile, a thermal camera takes over the tracking until it is engaged simultaneously by two HELs. The system uses two lasers to provide the power needed to overcome atmospheric interference and physically destroy the target, which it does by focusing the beams on an area "about the size of a coin", Ezra said.
Ezra declined to give specific power levels for the HELs, except to say that they are currently working with "tens of kilowatts", but expects to move into the "hundreds of kilowatts" in the future. Rafael does not produce the lasers itself, but sources them from several unnamed suppliers.
As Ezra noted, Iron Beam is still a development programme and is not yet a finished product. "We are currently focused on understanding the technology, and we are at the beginning of a very long road," he said, adding: "We are waiting for more powerful lasers, but the investment from the [Israeli] government right now is limited."
While Ezra would not be specific, he did say that tests conducted to date have met with "a very good" success rate. He noted that about 100 firings have so far taken place.
http://www.janes.com/article/33647/singapore-airshow-rafael-launches-iron-beam
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