U.S. anti-drone weapon unveiled: "U.S. defense giant Raytheon Missile Systems has unveiled a laser weapon capable of shooting unmanned aerial vehicles from a range of just less than 2 miles.
Mounted on a U.S. warship's missile defense system, the laser shot down four drones in secret tests off California in May, Raytheon touted in a statement this week.
The test entailed tracking the drones with sensors used as part of a Raytheon-built ship defense system and destroying the aircraft using a high-powered, fiber-optic laser.
The laser's 50-kilowatt beam can shoot down a drone traveling as fast as 311 miles per hour.
Experts explain that Raytheon developed the system after buying six off-the-shelf commercial lasers from the car industry before combining them to produce a single, powerful beam guided by Phalanx radars.
Unlike other military tests that have been conducted on aircraft, it uses a solid-state laser rather than a chemical-generated beam."
