Sci-fi weapon entering real battles

Phasers were weapons once confined to the characters of Star Trek. But so-called 'pain-ray' guns are among the technology now being developed for the US Army.

Raytheon, the American defence contractor, is testing laser weaponry to destroy incoming missiles.

James T Kirk used to carry one as captain of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek. So did Mr Spock when he beamed down to a hostile planet. The trusty phaser was a key prop in the 1960s television series and had boldly gone where no weapon had been before in the big-budget Hollywood franchise movies that followed.

But what was once a weapon of science fiction, with beams that could be set to kill, vaporise or stun their targets, is about to become science fact. Raytheon, the US defence giant, is testing weapons using lasers that can be guided by powerful radars and break up incoming mortars and missiles, as well as taking out prying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying high overhead. It is also developing guns that shoot out millimetre waves that may not vaporise their targets but can at least reach pain receptors under the skin, leading to their unofficial moniker, the pain ray.

Mike Booen, the vice president of advanced security and directed energy systems at Raytheon, says both weapons have the advantage of unimaginable speed. "They are two very different weapons but the common denominator in both is that they travel at the speed of light," says Mr Booen. For a navy ship preparing to defend itself against incoming missiles, that is a welcome trick. In fact, both weapons are being positioned as defensive rather than offensive, Raytheon says.

In 2006, the company used a laser to successfully blow up an immobile mortar to prove its concept. Mr Booen says it works by directing a laser - or energy converted into photons - at a mortar and heating up the explosives inside the shell to blow it up from the inside. In 2008, a Raytheon laser blew up an incoming mortar shell over land after being guided by a radar system called Phalanx, used by the US navy and also made by the defence company.

The principal feature of the Phalanx is a computer-controlled, guided rapid-fire "Gatling gun" serving as a ship's close-in support. It can be used if the ship's defensive missiles fail to stop incoming targets. Now, Raytheon believes it can develop a weapon by adding a laser system as a last line of defence. "It always seems like people are saying there will be a solid-state laser on the battlefield in the next three years, and they've been saying this for the last 10 years," Mr Booen says.

"But people didn't focus on problems the war fighter cares about. In this case, we are focused on a problem of mortars coming in." The Phalanx system is being used on land in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as by the US Navy. Raytheon hopes to start commercial production of its lasers by 2016, with mortars expected to become increasingly accurate through the use of GPS technology. An estimated 90 per cent of unguided mortars fail to reach their target.

If the laser is to be successful it must beat rival systems. Boeing last month announced it was under contract with the US army to build a truck-mounted high-energy laser "demonstrator" that is also being developed to stop mortars and rockets. Raytheon's laser system, which is composed of six solid-state lasers producing 32 kilowatts that simultaneously focus on one target, has also had success against UAVs.

In a video released by Raytheon and the US navy last month, a UAV with a wingspan of about 2.5 metres is seen bursting into flames and crashing into the Pacific Ocean. Four UAVs were flown, and four were shot down by lasers. "You don't want to launch a US$1 million (Dh3.6m) missile against a cheaper UAV," says Mr Booen. "But lasers can do that." The company's millimeter wave gun is equally futuristic. Called Silent Guardian, this truck-mounted weapon shoots a beam of waves up to 250 metres away. The pain ray gives "an intense heating sensation", Mr Booen says.

It has taken the company more than 10 years of medical and legal analysis to conclude the weapon is marketable. Raytheon has made these weapons for the US Government but has not had commercial success with high-volume orders to its armed forces or international buyers, although one country it is marketing the pain ray to is the UAE. The company sees it as a non-lethal way to disperse crowds and believes it is perfect for the protection of critical infrastructure, for which lethal weapons would be overkill.

While critics have said the US armed forces refrained from using the pain ray in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the negative implications it would have for the army's treatment of foreigners, Mr Booen says it is "just a matter of time" before its Silent Guardian, or Active Denial System, is deployed. Raytheon is also promoting a related weapon to dismantle shoulder-fired missiles at vital facilities such as airports.

The company's Vigilant Eagle system of high-powered microwave weaponry could dismantle the missile guidance system and prevent it from reaching its target. @Email:[e-mail]