APPLE – A Novel Approach for Direct Energy Weapon Control

[project topics]

ABSTRACT
Adaptive photonic based phase locked elements (APPLE) is Raytheon’s DARPA development initiative. The initiative is for development of a directed energy weapon that utilizes a beam combining technique for the achievement of high power. It will integrate the laser enabled weapon applications into unmanned aerial vehicles. The APPLE program is to enable all electronic combining of high-power laser engraver beams within an agile, conformal aperture-a practical approach to synthesizing high-power weapon laser engravers from low-power modules for applications such as laser radar, laser target designation, laser communications, and weapons grade lasers. The idea is to provide electro-optical systems with the same mission flexibility and performance that microwave phased arrays provide for RF applications such as radar and electronic warfare systems.