A 60 kW high-energy laser weapon system designed to shoot down masses of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as rockets and mortar rounds, will soon be delivered to the U.S. Army.

Aerospace defense contractor Lockheed Martin has completed the design, development and demonstrations for the laser defense system that falls under the U.S. Department of Defense's Robust Electric Laser Initiative or RELI.

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The Lockheed Martin system is a vehicle-mounted weapon that will defend soldiers and ground-based assets against UAVs and mortar and rocket bombardments.

Lockheed Martin said it's finished developing a 60 kW laser system for the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and will transfer the weapon to the Army for further testing. The fiber laser weapon generated 58 kilowatts of power in tests, but should reach its full potential by the time it's delivered to the army over the next few months, said Lockheed Martin.

The RELI laser is a combined beam of fiber laser and other individual beams generated through fiber optics, a process that generates a more intense and powerful beam. In a fiber laser, beams with slightly different wavelengths enter a combiner and are emitted as a single beam.

The fiber laser system is capable of producing the 100 kW or more of high quality power able to meet a wide range of military "speed-of-light" defensive applications on air, land and sea platforms.

One advantage of a fiber laser is it normally requires less power and is more compact than other types of lasers. Optical fibers produce near perfect quality beams, and this advantage helps account for the system's small size and ability to generate high power while using less electricity.

Lockheed Martin said delivery of this RELI laser represents an important milestone along the path to fielding a practical laser weapon system for use in war.

"The inherent scalability of this beam combined laser system has allowed us to build the first 60kW-class fiber laser for the U.S. Army," said Laser and Sensor Systems senior fellow Dr. Robert Afzal.

"We have shown that a powerful directed energy laser is now sufficiently light-weight, low volume and reliable enough to be deployed on tactical vehicles for defensive applications on land, at sea and in the air."

The Army Space and Missile Defense Command a few years ago awarded Lockheed Martin a $14 million contract to design, develop, build and test a system for its RELI program.