When most people hear the phrase laser weapon, they picture something out of science fiction — a glowing beam shooting across the sky toward a target and then carving through that target with ease, like a knife through butter.

The reality of lasers is very different.

Recently, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) — the U.S. Department of War’s lead agency on C-UAS – worked alongside the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and completed a series of safety demonstrations at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico using the Army’s Multipurpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) system. These tests were designed specifically to answer the question many people are asking:

Can counter-drone lasers operate safely in mixed civilian airspace?

The short answer is yes — and the reason why comes down to how these systems are built and operated.

Over the past two decades as an engineer working in counter-UAS systems — including extensive testing of directed energy platforms — I’ve worked on systems designed with layered safety at their core. In the last four years alone, our LOCUST® team has conducted more than 66 test events and safely engaged over a thousand drone targets without incident.

That body of testing helps illustrate how these systems are engineered to operate safely in complex environments.

But how do they actually work?

LAYERS OF SAFETY

Most people imagine a laser weapon working like a laser gun in a science fiction movie: an operator points it, pulls the trigger, and a beam shoots toward the target.

In reality, modern laser systems operate much more like commercial aviation systems — with multiple independent safety layers designed to prevent a single mistake from creating a hazardous situation.

Every time an operator presses the “fire” button, the system runs through a series of automated checks. Some examples include:

• Is the laser pointing away from protected “keep-out” zones?
• Are all internal subsystems operating within safe parameters?
• Is the system properly locked onto a target?
• Are safety interlock switches engaged?
• Are all software safety checks satisfied?

Each of these checks acts as a safety “vote.”

If any subsystem registers a “no vote,” the laser simply will not fire. An operator can press the trigger — and nothing happens. The system refuses to engage until all conditions are verified as safe.

These automated safeguards are built into both the hardware and the software of the system.

A WIDER VIEW OF THE AIRSPACE

Laser systems also don’t operate alone.

They are connected to higher-level command and control (C2) systems that maintain awareness of everything flying in the surrounding airspace. These systems combine data from radar, aircraft transponders, and other sensors to create what is known as an Integrated Air Picture.

By fusing information from multiple sources, operators can see civilian aircraft, military aircraft, and other objects operating nearby in real time.

This broader view provides another layer of safety. The command system can also issue its own “votes” that prevent the laser from firing if protected aircraft or restricted airspace are nearby.

In practical terms, this means that if an operator accidentally points the system toward an area where protected aircraft are operating, the laser will not fire. The system automatically blocks the engagement.

It’s another example of the principle used widely in aviation: multiple independent safeguards working together to prevent unsafe conditions.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS WHEN A LASER FIRES?

Another common misconception is how the laser beam behaves once it leaves the system.

In movies, laser beams look like glowing bolts of light traveling across the sky. Real directed-energy systems don’t work that way.

The beam itself is invisible and travels at the speed of light. The system can turn the laser on and off extremely quickly — engaging or disengaging in fractions of a second as safety systems continuously monitor conditions.

People also often imagine that the beam continues indefinitely into space like a perfectly straight pencil.

In reality, the beam is shaped like an hourglass. The center of the hourglass is called the focus point. The focus point is set to a specific, controlled distance to concentrate energy on a target. Beyond that focus point, the beam naturally spreads, reducing in intensity by an order of magnitude a few hundred meters beyond the focus point.

This means that after the target area, the beam quickly loses the intensity needed to cause damage. The natural physics of the beam significantly limits the risk to aircraft far beyond the engagement area.

FAMILIAR TECHNOLOGY

It’s also important to remember that the core laser technology used in these systems is not exotic.

The same class of near-infrared fiber lasers used in directed-energy systems is widely deployed across industry. Variants of these lasers are used every day in manufacturing to cut and weld metals, in medicine to perform precise surgical procedures, and even in agriculture as an herbicide-free way to remove weeds.

What makes counter-drone systems different is not the laser itself, but the sophisticated sensors, targeting systems, and safety controls built around it.

A SAFER WAY TO COUNTER DRONE THREATS

The rapid growth of small drone threats has created a difficult challenge: how to stop dangerous aircraft without introducing new risks into already busy airspace. That challenge now affects airports, critical infrastructure, public events, and military installations alike.

Properly designed laser systems help solve that problem.

Taken together — automated safety checks, integrated airspace awareness, and the natural physics of the beam itself — these systems are designed to operate safely even in mixed civilian airspace.

In a crowded airspace, the safest way to stop a dangerous drone may ultimately be a precisely controlled beam of light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Westman is an engineer and leader specializing in counter-UAS and directed energy systems. He has played a key role advancing mobile laser weapon integration and operational deployment, supporting a variety of cross-domain capabilities that improve precision engagement and layered air defense.

JOIN THE AV MISSION

AV isn’t for everyone. We hire the curious, the relentless, the mission-obsessed. The best of the best.

We don’t just build defense technology—we redefine what’s possible. As the premier autonomous systems company in the U.S., AV delivers breakthrough capabilities across air, land, sea, space, and cyber. From AI-powered drones and loitering munitions to integrated autonomy and space resilience, our technologies shape the future of warfare and protect those who serve.

Founded by legendary innovator Dr. Paul B. MacCready, Jr., AV has spent over 50 years pushing the boundaries of what unmanned systems can do. Our heritage includes seven platforms in the Smithsonian—but we’re not building history, we’re building what’s next.

If you’re ready to build technology that matters—with speed, scale, and purpose—there’s no better place to do it than AV.

By Aaron Westman, Senior Director of Business Development at AV  

A $50,000 drone can destroy a $30 million aircraft.

A $2 million missile can destroy a $50,000 drone.

If that sounds like a losing proposition, it’s because it is.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have fundamentally altered the economics of conflict. We have all seen the videos — small, inexpensive aircraft delivering outsized battlefield effects. Nowhere has this been more visible than in Ukraine, where production numbers and lethality statistics are staggering.

While much attention is focused on drone technology, the equally critical and often overlooked counterpart is counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS), systems that allow us to defend against aerial threats. The ongoing cat-and-mouse game between drones and the defense systems designed to defeat them is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Dedicated C-UAS formations are being developed and adopted around the world. Advanced sensors and effectors are being deployed not just by militaries, but by law enforcement agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and even professional sports venues.

The importance of C-UAS is understood. Its implications are not.

At its core, the C-UAS challenge is not just technological. It is also economic.

Drones live in the world of software—iterative, mass-produced, and scaled across global supply chains capable of producing hundreds of thousands, even millions, of units per year. Air defense lives in the world of atoms. Every interceptor must be built, shipped, stored, and sustained. Each one is a discrete, exhaustible object. Once fired, it disappears from inventory, and replacing it takes time, money, and industrial capacity that cannot surge at the speed of software.

This creates a structural imbalance in cost and scale. A single defended site facing sustained drone pressure can consume thousands of interceptors in a matter of months, turning defense into a contest of industrial endurance rather than tactical skill. When each engagement carries a five or six-figure price tag, the defender risks spending more to defeat the threat than the attacker spends to create it.

In this environment, the defining metric of effectiveness is no longer whether a system can intercept a drone, but whether it can do so affordably, repeatedly, and at the scale the threat demands.

In essence, C-UAS is no longer defined by whether you can stop a drone, but whether you can afford to stop them all.

Why Cost Parity Is Not Enough

Conventional wisdom holds that if we can simply make interceptors cheaper, the problem goes away. It does not.

Even if an interceptor achieves nominal cost parity with a one-way attack drone, the defender still faces the burden of manufacturing, storing, and distributing large quantities of physical munitions. The attacker retains initiative. The defender retains logistical burden.

What the C-UAS fight demands is not just cost reduction. It demands a fundamentally different scaling model — one that can keep pace with, or outpace, the industrial production of drones.

That is where directed energy enters the conversation.

A Different Model: Electricity Instead of Inventory

Laser Directed Energy Weapons (LDEWs) invert the economics of C-UAS.

A missile is consumed when fired. A laser recharges.

Instead of throwing hardware at hardware, a laser delivers concentrated energy onto the target.  The marginal cost per engagement is measured in electricity — typically about a kilowatt-hour or $0.18 worth of electricity per shot, roughly comparable to the amount required to operate a household refrigerator for a day.

A laser system does not need a warehouse of interceptors. It does not require constant munitions resupply convoys. It is limited primarily by power availability and thermal management, not by missile inventory.

In practical terms, this means that a C-UAS unit equipped with an effective LDEW can defend against large volumes of small UAS threats without the exponential logistics burden associated with kinetic interceptors.

This is not science fiction. It is not a cinematic “death ray.” A modern LDEW functions more like a long-range precision welder, applying concentrated energy to structurally or functionally disable a drone. The physics are straightforward. The engineering challenge has been shrinking the system, lowering the cost, and making it rugged enough for real-world use.

Thanks to advances in commercial fiber lasers, optics, and power electronics, that tipping point has arrived.

Demonstrated Scale

Over the past four years, our team at AV has conducted more than 66 test, demonstration, live-fire, and operational exercises with our LOCUST family of C-UAS laser systems. Across those events — including preparations and supporting trials — we estimate that our systems have safely defeated over 1,000 small UAS targets.

These were not simulations. They were real unmanned aircraft, real sensors, real power systems, and real environmental conditions.

What is noteworthy is not simply that lasers work. It is that they can operate repeatedly without the inventory constraints that define kinetic systems. Even with only a limited number of prototypes built to date, the cumulative number of engagements would have required substantial missile expenditure had traditional interceptors been used.

That difference scales.

Not a Silver Bullet — But a Necessary One

No single system will solve every aspect of the C-UAS problem. RF-based systems will continue to play an important role against nuisance or commercially derived drones. Gun-based systems will retain utility at very close ranges or in specific environments. Kinetic interceptors remain essential against certain classes of threats.

But when confronting high-volume, low-cost robotic systems, it is difficult to envision a more suitable hard-kill effector than an affordable, producible LDEW.

The question is not whether lasers can defeat drones. They can, they do.

The real question is whether we are willing to align our defensive strategy with the economics of the threat.

In the C-UAS fight, cost structure is destiny. 

Yesterday, AV Announced a $30 million investment in its New Mexico campus, which is where the LOCUST system is manufactured.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Aaron Westman is an engineer and leader specializing in counter-UAS and directed energy systems. He has played a key role advancing mobile laser weapon integration and operational deployment, supporting a variety of cross-domain capabilities that improve precision engagement and layered air defense.

JOIN THE AV MISSION 

AV isn’t for everyone. We hire the curious, the relentless, the mission-obsessed. The best of the best.

We don’t just build defense technology—we redefine what’s possible. As the premier autonomous systems company in the U.S., AV delivers breakthrough capabilities across air, land, sea, space, and cyber. From AI-powered drones and loitering munitions to integrated autonomy and space resilience, our technologies shape the future of warfare and protect those who serve.

Founded by legendary innovator Dr. Paul B. MacCready, Jr., AV has spent over 50 years pushing the boundaries of what unmanned systems can do. Our heritage includes seven platforms in the Smithsonian—but we’re not building history, we’re building what’s next.

If you’re ready to build technology that matters—with speed, scale, and purpose—there’s no better place to do it than AV.