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2017-01-09

Rise in Export Orders for Leonardo-Finmeccanica’s Laser Designators

Over 250 Type 163 designators have been procured over the last two years

According to reports, 10 customers in the US and Europe have now procured the high-energy, man-portable laser systems. The contracts are a boost for Leonardo’s laser business, which encompasses around 75 per cent of the global market for high-energy military lasers.

Leonardo’s Type 163 LTD is a man- portable laser designed to provide laser designation for semi-active laser guided weapons. Leonardo Airborne and Space Systems is the international leader in the high-energy laser targeting market.

The company provides targeting lasers for the F-35 aircraft, Apache helicopter and for the Northrop Grumman Litening and Lockheed Martin Sniper targeting pods. The Type 163 LTD is Leonardo’s first application of its high-energy laser technology in the land domain, where the company has been able to benefit from its experience in creating lasers for aircraft where space and power are at a premium.

Leonardo’s Type 163 LTD has been designed to support Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs), the military service members responsible for supporting fellow troops by directing close air support. Traditionally, laser target designators have proved too heavy and bulky for JTACs to take into front-line operations, causing problems with target identification in close combat operations.

Leonardo introduced the Type 163 LTD as a solution to this problem, building on its previous experience in the military lasers market where size, weight and power requirements are critical. Based on user needs and feedback while designing, the focus has been on a laser which is simple and easy to operate yet rugged and reliable maintaining a performance level exceeding the current NATO STANAG 3733 and US PIM requirement over the extended military environmental envelope.

The Type 163 is typically a third of the size of competing land-based systems, includes immediate firing from switch-on and a continuous lasing capability, and produces a high-energy laser with a narrow beam divergence. The system provides laser-designation and range-finding in a highly-portable (less than 2.3kg) package.

Since being introduced, Type 163 LTDs have been proven in action with US Special Operations Forces (SOF), who have used them continuously for the past two years on combat operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Several further US Department of Defense services have followed Special Operations Forces in selecting the Type 163 LTD including US Air Force JTACs and parts of the US Air National Guard.

Other nations are also actively using the Type 163 LTD and have benefitted from the system’s immediate and accurate target identification capabilities.

The Type 163 laser form factor supports ease of packing and portability, whilst the athermal laser technology allows rapid deployment with negligible warm up time, and near-silent continuous operation without duty cycle restriction.

The laser is designed to support a modular-and-separable approach to target acquisition and sensor equipment as used by Forward Air Controllers, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, Tactical Air Control Parties and Forward Observers. This provides maximum flexibility in mission planning and helps to minimise the individuals’ carrying load.

The Type 163 utilises recent advances in laser technology, particularly in the areas of diode-pumping design, athermal resonator design, active q-switch and high efficiency heat exchangers.

This results in the Type 163 laser offering full performance over a broad operating temperature and robust packaging suitable for military applications. Diode-pumping provides exceptional reliability, lifetime and performance and, combined with the athermal laser resonator approach, delivers dramatic reductions in size, weight and cost over traditionally fielded equipment.

Reference Photo / Text:

www.leonardocompany.com

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