Continued Optical Sensor Operations in a Laser Environment

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The U.S. and other industrialized nations are conducting research and development of directed energy applications, including High-energy Lasers (HEL) and Low-energy Lasers (LEL). While HEL will likely have military applications in Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), Counter-Air, Counter-Space, and Counter-Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), HEL applications will be slow to proliferate to potential adversaries due to high cost and technical complexity. However, LEL (i.e., d10kW average power) will be developed as technological byproducts of HEL and commercial applications, and will rapidly proliferate due to lost cost and reduced technical complexity. The U.S. Air Force, other military services, and other government agencies will field a wide variety of unmanned aerial vehicles by 2030. Most will be equipped with focal plane array (FPA)-based optical sensors in the ultra-violet, visible, and infra-red spectrum. FPAs are sensitive detectors constructed from dense arrays of very-large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) gates. As such, LELs pose a denial and degradation threat to these sensors.