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Australian troops could soon be equipped with a locally developed and transportable laser that is designed to shoot down lethal enemy drones travelling as fast as 100 kilometres per hour.
Defence has for the first time awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to a Melbourne company to trial its "directed energy" (DE) technology as a way of combating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which are being used with devastating effect in the Ukraine war.
DE weapons concentrate large amounts of electromagnetic energy on a remote target, in the form of light (a laser), or alternatively, microwaves and radio waves can be used.
Loading...Under a $4.9 million contract awarded to AIM Defence, the firm expects to deliver its Fractl:2 DE system to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for ongoing counter-drone testing and evaluation by the middle of this year.
According to AIM Defence, the advanced technology is powerful enough to burn through steel while also precise enough to track down and shoot a drone travelling at 100kph when fired from several kilometres away.
"It helps to protect against the number one threat that we have out on the battlefield now and the most asymmetric threat that we've seen emerge over the last couple of decades," AIM co-founder Jessica Glenn told the ABC.
"Our tracking and control systems are extremely well developed to be able to track that target plus or minus a millimetre while it's travelling 100 kilometres an hour."
Ms Glenn says the system is portable and battery-operated and can shoot down 50 drones per charge, or it can be plugged into a power source for continuous operation.
"It does it in a way that we can afford to do it and it does it in a way that is actually smarter for us to deploy with our troops — it just means your system can be orders of magnitude smaller and cheaper," she said.
DE weapons have been under development for decades but until recently the light-based technology has not been considered a viable and cost-effective alternative to replace traditional munitions on the battlefield.
Under the second pillar of the AUKUS partnership, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia are investing in advanced capabilities such as DE, hypersonics and quantum technology.
Over recent months the government and ADF have faced continued criticism for not embracing lethal drones and counter-drone systems despite the Ukrainian war demonstrating how crucial they are to modern warfare.