Recently significant investments have been made by India in the fields of DEWs.
- DEWs are ranged weapons that use concentrated energy from electromagnetic or particle technology, rather than kinetic energy, to degrade or destroy targets.
Applications of Directed Energy Weapons
- Military Defense: To intercept and destroy incoming missiles, neutralize drones, and disable enemy electronics.
- Law Enforcement and Border Security: Non-lethal DEWs e.g. microwaves or lasers can be used for crowd control and border security.
- Space Operations: To protect satellites from debris and anti-satellite weapons.
Advantages
- Complementary to conventional weapons: DEWs use energy fired at speed of light, making them faster and potentially less costly.
- Reduced Logistical Demand: DEWs reduces the need for physical ammunition.
- Other advantages: Precision, stealth & more destructive etc.
Challenges
- Less effective for farther distances.
- Wider beam DEWs (High power microwave or millimeter wave weapons) affect all assets, whether friend or foe.
- Uncertainty around long-term health effects of DEWs on people.
Steps taken by India
- Directionally Unrestricted Ray-Gun Array (DURGA)-II Project: Initiated by DRDO to build 100-kilowatt lightweight DEW.
- 2kW Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) System: Developed by Bharat electronic limited for countering new threats like drones.
- Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC): Laboratory of DRDO developing direct energy weapons.