Dragonfire, the UK’s Laser Directed Energy Programme (LDEW) led by MBDA, has successfully begun a series of trials to prove the accuracy and power of the novel laser weapon.

This was reported by the MBDA.

The first of these trials recently conducted by the Dragonfire consortium at low power proved the system can successfully track air and sea targets with high accuracy.

The company noted that this success has paved the way for the next phase – a static high power laser trial.

“The success of these trials is a key step in the development of sovereign laser directed energy weapons. It is the culmination of a lot of hard work from both the industry and teams…” Managing Director of MBDA UK Chris Allam said.

The essential challenge of an LDEW system is safely controlling and focusing high laser power onto an extremely precise point, at long range.

This trial used a low power QinetiQ laser, Leonardo’s beam director and MBDAs Image Processing and Control technology to facilitate the ultra-precise “fine” pointing and tracking accuracy, when a high-powered laser will be used.

The Dragonfire laser is designed to protect surface ships and ground forces from missiles or artillery munitions. Those are supposed to be shot down in the air before approaching the target.

Thus, the laser should provide anti-missile defense in the near zone and also destroy drones.

UK DRAGONFIRE is a joint combat laser consortium led by defense company MBDA with QinetiQ and Leonardo.

Previously, Germany has successfully tested the technology demonstrator version of a laser weapon to counter UAVs.

The first trials with the laser testbed were conducted at Rheinmetall’s proving ground in Unterlüß as part of a Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (C-UAS) campaign.