Directed energy

Pentagon Shifts Focus on Directed Energy Weapons Technology

The Department of Defense is focusing its directed energy weapons research on technologies ready to field now, placing on the backburner plans to create more complex space-based technology, the Pentagon’s head of research said on Wednesday.

Exploring the usefulness of directed energy, specifically figuring out how to increase the wattage of these weapons, is the Pentagon’s focus now, Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said during a keynote address at the 2019 Defense News conference. In practical terms, this means the Pentagon wants technologies ready to deploy in the near-term and is shelving plans to develop systems that are years away from initial testing.

“We’re looking at high powered microwaves,” Griffin said. “We’re deferring work on neutral particle beams indefinitely. It’s just not near-enough term.”

Griffin’s comments Wednesday signal a narrowing focus for the Pentagon’s directed energy development. In March, the Pentagon was fully behind developing a space-based neutral particle beam, a directed energy project that has its roots in the 1980s.