As part of US President Donald Trump’s massive $716billion national security budget for next year, some $66million has been set aside to build remote-controlled robots capable of destroying enemy rockets.
Military commanders say the new weaponry has the potential to be a “game changer” in the theatre of missile defence.
Making the case for funding, the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) said: “Recent escalation of the threat from North Korea has demonstrated an advanced and accelerated capability.
“North Korea is committed to developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that is capable of posing a direct threat to the United States.”
Kim Jong-un’s regime tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile in September, which it says has the range to target anywhere in the United States.
And to help counter the threat, the Low Power Laser Demonstrator (LPD) programme has been tasked with produce an aerial drone fitted with a 150-kilowatt laser cannon.
The US has already tested a 30-kilowatt laser weapon fitted to a warship, and the weapon had more than enough power to shoot down enemy drones.
With its higher power, the sci-fi LPD could be used to target enemy long-range ballistic missiles either on the launch pad or blast them out of the sky shortly after they have been fired.
And MDA bosses are aiming to have a drone armed with the laser by 2020.
On its hopes for the new LPD project, the MDA said: “Scalable, efficient, and compact high-energy lasers can be game–changing capabilities within missile defence architectures.”
Engineers are planning to mount the weapon on one of the United States’ brand new Avenger drones, a bigger, more stealthy model than the fearsome Predator drones used in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But they still need to overcome a number of problems before it would be combat-ready, including the weight of current laser weaponry and the amount of power they require.
Researchers also face the issue of designing a weapon which can track and hit a target with a cannon fixed to a moving drone, through air filled with dust and water vapour – both of which can scatter the beam.
Discussing the progress of the technology back in 2015, Michael Perry, vice president for Mission Systems at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said his firm had already delivered a 150-kilowatt laser to the Pentagon for testing at its New Mexico proving grounds.
Speaking to Defense One, he said: “Before you spend any money on a laser you better darn well show that you can acquire, ID, and track the objects of interest so that you could put a laser on them.
“You have to be able to compensate for aero-optic distortion.”