The Atlantic: Ukrainian engineers have developed a laser that burns drones

A team of Ukrainian engineers has created the Sunray laser cannon, designed to be used by mobile fire teams to shoot down enemy drones. Simon Shuster writes about this in an article for The Atlantic. Defender Media summarises the most interesting points from the text.

The author says the weapon can be mounted on a pickup truck and resembles a telescope, with several cameras mounted on the sides. At the same time, the laser does not make any noise and does not emit light, “not even that red beam that is so familiar from films.”

During Sunray’s tests, Shuster observed that the laser gun’s cameras tracked a drone flying about 180 metres away. A few seconds after the command “fire,” the drone began to burn in the air.

The publication states that the cannon’s prototype was created over two years. The production cost is several million dollars. The developers expect that the cost of one cannon will be several hundred thousand dollars.

The Atlantic explains that Ukrainian arms manufacturers have been trying for several years to achieve the results of Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system on a significantly smaller budget. Their progress is evidenced by developments such as the P1-Sun, a 3D-printed interceptor drone from Skyfall. There is also a carbon-fibre clone of Russia’s best air-defence missile, the NRC, with machine-gun turrets and more exotic weapons such as the Sunray.

“The trajectory of their development suggests that Ukraine may soon be able to neutralise one of the biggest threats to its security: the swarms of Russian drones,” the author predicts.