30kW laser experiments against drones

This paper will report on a first series of experiments of High Energy Laser effects on drones and drone components at TNO. After a description of the 30kW L3O laser facility at TNO, the experimental results will be discussed. The experiments were performed in an indoor facility and some considerations will be given on how to set up the experiments to enable “translation” of the experimental results to outdoor operational scenarios. The results illustrate that there can be large variations in the illumination time of the High Energy Laser on the target before fatal damage is observed, depending on the specific drone component selected as target. This illustrates that target aimpoint selection is critical for the result and a good understanding of the weak spots of drones is required to enable High Energy Laser systems to be effective against drones.