A thermal management system for a directed energy weapon includes a closed loop vapor compression system through which a thermal management fluid circulates. The vapor compression system including an expansion valve and an evaporator. The directed energy weapon is arranged in thermal communication with the evaporator. The expansion valve is adjustable to control a flow of the thermal management fluid provided to the evaporator in response to a mode of operation of the directed energy weapon.

A thermal management system for a directed energy weapon includes a heat exchanger thermally coupled to the directed energy weapon. The heat exchanger has a heat exchanger inlet and a heat exchanger outlet. A storage reservoir contains a thermal material. An outlet of the storage reservoir is arranged in fluid communication with the heat exchanger to form a closed loop having a thermal management fluid circulating therethrough. The storage reservoir is thermally coupled to a secondary system. A control valve is positioned downstream from the outlet of the storage reservoir. The control valve is adjustable to control a temperature of the thermal management fluid provided to the heat exchanger.

A thermal management system for a directed energy weapon includes a heat transfer assembly thermally coupled to the directed energy weapon. The heat transfer assembly includes a phase change material. The thermal management system further includes a secondary system and a thermal management fluid circulating through a closed loop fluidly coupled to the heat transfer assembly and the secondary system. A mode of operation of the directed energy weapon is dependent on a condition of the phase change material.

A laser irradiation apparatus is provided with a controller that calculates at least one predicted movement position into which a target is predicted to move at a specific time in future, a transmission laser source that generates a transmission laser, irradiation optics configured to emit the transmission laser to the target and emit search laser to the predicted movement position and wavefront correction optics. The wavefront correction optics are configured to correct a wavefront of the transmission laser at the specific time based on observation light that returns when the search laser is emitted to the predicted movement position.

A coherent imaging system produces coherent flood illumination directed toward a remote object and local oscillator (LO) illumination derived based on a same master oscillator as the flood illumination. A Doppler sensor receives the LO illumination and a return of flood illumination reflected off the object. Doppler shift data from the Doppler sensor, corresponding to a longitudinal velocity of the object relative to the imaging system, is used to produce Doppler-shifted LO illumination received by a low bandwidth, large format focal plane array (FPA), together with the return illumination from the object. Interference between the Doppler-shifted LO illumination and the return illumination facilitates producing an image of the object with the low bandwidth FPA despite the longitudinal velocity. Pixel intensities from the FPA are integrated over a period approaching the maximum interference frequency. The Doppler sensor and FPA may concurrently process return for a high energy laser target spot.

A system includes a target illumination laser (TIL) configured to illuminate an airborne target with a TIL beam. The system also includes a beacon illuminator (BIL) configured to transmit a spot of illumination to an expected location on the target, wherein the spot of illumination is more focused than the TIL beam. The system also includes a camera configured to receive an image of the spot reflected off the target. The system also includes a controller configured to determine an actual location of the spot on the target based on the received image. The controller is also configured to estimate a spot motion by correlating the actual location of the spot on the target with the expected location on the target. The controller is also configured to predict uplink jitter of a high energy laser (HEL) beam generated by a HEL based on the BIL spot motion, the uplink jitter caused by atmospheric optical turbulence.

A system includes a target illumination laser (TIL) configured to generate a TIL beam that illuminates a target and a beacon illumination laser (BIL) configured to generate a BIL beam that creates a spot on the target. The system also includes an imaging sensor configured to capture both (i) first images of the target containing reflected TIL energy from the TIL beam without reflected BIL energy from the BIL beam and (ii) second images of the target containing reflected TIL energy from the TIL beam and reflected BIL energy from the BIL beam. The system further includes at least one controller configured to perform target tracking using the first images and boresight error compensation using the second images.

A system includes a beam splitter, camera, and a position sensitive detector (PSD). The beam splitter splits a beam ensemble into a first beam portion and a second beam portion. The camera PSD detects an image profile of the first beam portion. The PSD detects a position of the second beam portion.

A laser weapon system is described. Particularly, embodiments describe subsystems of a laser weapon system including those necessary for laser generation, operational control, optical emission, and heat dissipation configured to provide a lightweight unit of reduced dimensions.

Systems and methods include a radiation source configured to generate a first waveform, a first separator configured to separate the first waveform into linearly polarized second and third waveforms, a first modulator configured to modulate at least one of a phase and a polarization of the second waveform to generate a fourth waveform, a second modulator configured to modulate at least one of a phase and a polarization of the third waveform to generate a fifth waveform, a first combiner configured to combine the fourth and fifth waveforms to generate a sixth waveform, an amplifier configured to amplify the sixth waveform to generate a seventh waveform, a second separator configured to separate the seventh waveform into a plurality of amplified waveforms, and beam directing optics configured to direct the plurality of amplified waveforms to form an output waveform at a target location.