Chapter 202 High-energy laser weapons
Li Fengting in the video link then talked to Lu An about high-energy laser weapons.
After chatting for about ten minutes, Lu An finally understood.
It turns out that Li Fengting came to ask about the suppression and counter-suppression solutions of armed robots. The military already knew how to solve them.
It was high-energy laser weapons, electromagnetic weapons, etc.
There are already several domestic scientific research institutions and units secretly developing laser weapons, but progress is slow.
Obviously, the military wanted Lu An to develop laser weapons. This was the real reason why Li Fengting contacted him this time.
However, Lu An now has a lot of projects at hand. Whether he has time and whether he can be busy is also a question. However, the military looked around and found that Lu An was the most anticipated.
The military wanted to do things quickly, but had no choice but to come and find him.
Data shows that Lu An dabbled in high-energy physics when he was in college and published a very high-quality paper.
Laser weapons are application technologies in the field of high-energy physics, and their core is based on the development and application of high-power laser technology. At present, several high-energy weapons research institutes in China have more or less referenced his original paper.
Let Lu An develop laser weapons. From the perspective of the military, he is a suitable professional counterpart. Let him overcome the technical problems of high-energy laser weapons.
Perhaps there will be a breakthrough soon.
Finally, Lu An thought for a moment and then replied: "I should still be able to keep busy, okay, I'll take this job."
"Okay, the military is waiting for your good news." Li Fengting smiled excitedly. He felt that with Lu An, a super genius, and with his technological development capabilities and efficiency, it might not take long for the country to make major progress in the field of high-energy laser weapons.
The two talked for a while and then ended the video communication.
Lu An sat in front of the screen and thought for a moment, and then said: "Xiao Ling, create a new file, high-energy weapon."
Lingxi responded: "It's done, Master."
Lu An nodded and said nothing, creating a folder first.
There is definitely no time to do it now. The best thing to do is to establish the general direction first.
High-energy laser weapons are, simply put, directed energy weapons that use high-power laser beams to destroy targets.
It manifests as ablation, breakdown, and blinding.
His core advantage lies in its fast response speed, because it propagates at the speed of light, and its interception cost is low. It only consumes electrical energy and can operate continuously.
However, technology implementation needs to break through multiple interdisciplinary bottlenecks. The performance of high-energy laser weapons is mainly determined by the collaboration of five subsystems: "laser source, beam control, thermal management, target tracking and system integration."
The core technology of each subsystem directly affects the power, range, accuracy and reliability of the weapon.
Lu An thought for a while and quickly established the general direction of laser weapons. In one sentence, he could summarize it as: three major types and six major applications.
Three major types: blinding type, tactical type, and strategic type.
Next, Lu An dictated in an orderly manner, and Lingxi AI generated the corresponding content in the document based on his description.
【Blinding laser weapon】
The output power is 10 to 15 kilowatts and the range is within 5 kilometers. Its combat positioning is close-range soft kill within several kilometers. It does not directly destroy the target, but interferes with or blinds the vision of enemy personnel, damages or paralyzes reconnaissance equipment, small drones, etc.
【Tactical laser weapon】
The output power is between 200 and 500 kilowatts, and the range is within 60 kilometers. Its combat positioning is hard-kill, destroying drones, rockets,
mortars, cruise missiles, etc., and intercepting low-altitude and slow-moving targets.
【Strategic Laser Weapons】
The output power is 10 to 30 megawatts, and the range can reach hundreds to thousands of kilometers. Its combat use is positioned as long-range strike, used to intercept intercontinental missiles, hypersonic weapons, attack satellites or the booster stage of ballistic missiles, etc.
Six major applications: individual laser guns, fixed-station lasers, vehicle-mounted lasers, ship-borne lasers, airborne lasers, and space-borne lasers.
Lu An plans to be the first to install individual laser guns on armed robots, mainly for anti-drone use.
In an armed robot combat company, a part of the armed robots can be deployed to carry laser weapons and follow the main combat force as special forces. Their function is only responsible for counter-drone operations to ensure that the main armed robot combat force is not disturbed by miniaturized suicide drones.
The armed robot comes with a 115kg solid-state lattice battery with an energy density of 3000Wh/kg, and can also carry a maximum load of 235kg.
In other words, the armed robot can carry 100 kilograms of its own high-energy-density battery and 170 kilograms of additional batteries, and can carry a total of more than 800 kilowatt-hours of energy storage.
The laser type carried by the armed robot is a blinding type, with an output power of 15 kilowatts. It consumes about 30 to 40 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour at full power. The battery has 507 kilowatt-hours of electricity with a load of 170 kilograms. It is enough for a battle. In an emergency, it can also use the energy carried by its own 100 kilogram battery.
Equipped with a blinding laser gun, the armed robot army has the ability to counter suicide drones.
Of course, it is also necessary to cooperate with a phased array radar vehicle. A suicide drone worth several thousand yuan has no stealth capability. The radar can spot it accurately and cannot be hidden at all.
Lu An knows that within a few years, radar will be used in China. Tanks can be equipped with phased array radars, and even those engaged in agriculture can use phased array radars.
This is the foundation of the largest industrial country. In the eyes of foreigners, this is simply a luxury.
There is nothing to say about fixed-station lasers. They are statically deployed and used for deployment in strategic locations. The advantage is that they can achieve ultra-high power. The disadvantage is that static deployment cannot be transferred.
With the support of solid-state lattice batteries with a mass density of 3000Wh/kg, the energy problem of vehicle-mounted lasers can be solved.
The energy density of traditional batteries is too low, which greatly restricts the vehicle-mounted use of laser weapons. If a traditional 100Wh/kg battery is used, it would require thousands of tons to barely be enough. What vehicle can pull such a large battery? Do you want to conduct rapid mobile deployment on the ground?
This is obviously impossible!
Split several vehicles, but the deployment is not flexible and the own goals are also large.
But solid-state lattice batteries perfectly solve this problem. It is definitely stress-free to carry a battery of about 100 tons on a vehicle. A 100-ton solid-state lattice battery can store nearly 300,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and it can completely carry tactical laser weapons on the vehicle.
Solid-state lattice batteries can solve the energy problem of vehicle-borne laser weapons, not to mention ship-borne laser weapons. Warships are huge.
If traditional batteries are used to power shipborne lasers, this is definitely unrealistic. Generators in the warships are still needed to power them, but this will occupy about 20% of the ship's power, resulting in a reduction in radar power.
For example, if a destroyer is equipped with a 300-kilowatt laser weapon, assuming that the electro-optical conversion efficiency is 35% of what is commonly achieved today, and taking into account auxiliary equipment such as cooling systems, control systems, and tracking systems, which usually consume an additional 10% to 20% of power, then a 1,000-kilowatt power supply is required when transmitting at full power.
This is extremely power-consuming, consuming 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour.
But if it is supported by high energy storage of 3000Wh/kg solid-state lattice batteries, shipborne laser weapons will not occupy the warship's power, no longer rely on the ship's generator for power, and will not affect the radar power. The battery must be fully charged before departure.
Solid-state lattice batteries have high energy density and occupy less space than traditional batteries.
For example, for a 10,000-ton behemoth like the 055 Dachu, the entire 800-ton solid-state lattice battery has no problem at all. It takes about 335 grams of solid-state lattice battery weight to fully charge 1 kilowatt hour. If equipped with an 800-ton battery, the full energy storage capacity can reach a terrifying 2.38 million kilowatt-hours.
With such sufficient power, shipborne laser weapons can fully achieve an output power of 500 kilowatts. Even if the electro-optical conversion efficiency is 35%, and the energy consumption of auxiliary systems such as cooling, control, and tracking is taken into account, the full power of the entire system reaches 3,000 kilowatts of power supply,
That is to say, it consumes 3,000 degrees of electricity per hour, and there is still no pressure.
In other words, this set of 500-kilowatt shipborne laser weapons can operate continuously for several months at an actual combat pace, even if the cooling,
Including all power consumption such as the tracking system, it can continue to burn at full power for about 50 days.
Airborne lasers are relatively useless. There is no need for fighter jets to carry laser weapons. Now they are all fighting beyond visual range.
Because the load capacity of fighter jets is still relatively limited, unless the energy density of solid-state lattice batteries is further improved to a theoretical extreme value of over 7500Wh/kg, which means that the power capacity is increased by 1.5 times while the load remains unchanged, then it can be used on fighter jets.
As for the current 3000Wh/kg level, it either does not go on airplanes, or it only goes on large transport aircraft. For example, the Y-20 transport aircraft can be modified to carry dozens of tons of solid-state lattice batteries as energy storage, so that it can have enough power.
Obviously, there is still no need for that. The maneuverability of transport aircraft is too poor.
But airborne laser weapons are still on Lu An's plan list, because the airborne laser weapons he wants to develop are future aerospace fighters or space fighters. At that time, ultra-high energy density batteries were used, and batteries weighing less than ten tons could support kilowatt-level output power.
Airborne lasers must be very low on the development list. Air and space fighter jets have not yet been released, so it is too early to engage in this.
At this moment, Lu An looked at the last sub-item file.
Satellite-borne laser.
After thinking for a moment, Lu An said: "Xiao Ling, please record the spaceborne laser. The combat positioning is strategic. The core purpose is to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles in their mid-course flight, intercept hypersonic missiles, and attack satellites."
Lingxi quickly generates memo content in the file.
Lu An continued: “The output power is 15 MW, and the total system power consumption is 25 MW.”
The output power is 15 MW, but the total power consumption is 25 MW, which shows that Lu An is designed with an electro-optical conversion efficiency of over 70%.
Most researchers currently studying laser weapons generally find their electro-optical conversion efficiency to be around 30%, and the higher the electro-optical conversion efficiency means the higher the energy utilization rate.
However, the total power consumption of 25 megawatts is also quite an astonishing value, which is equivalent to an hourly power consumption of 25,000 kilowatt hours.
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