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Lockheed Martin makes case for new era of directed energy weapons

21st August 2020 - 09:00 GMT | by Tim Martin in London

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The difficulties that have traditionally stopped industry and military operators from collaborating to successfully deploy directed energy weapons on the battlefield are effectively over, according to Lockheed Martin.

While technology demonstrator projects and test scenarios have advanced the cause of directed energy weapons and shown their utility in hitting a variety of targets, size issues have fundamentally prevented these weapons from equipping defence platforms.

The introduction and development of fibre laser technology has, however, enabled electrical power to be converted into light power at a more effective rate than before, according to Dr Rob Afzal, senior fellow for laser and

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Tim Martin

Tim Martin is Air Editor for Shephard Media, based in Belfast.

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