Re:Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
by snovv_crash on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @08:11AM
(#12351406)
So then the terrorist coats their drone in foil, and instead you are blinding anybody who looks at the drone when you fire.
No, kinetic or nets is much better.
Re:Startups that launched at Y Combinator S16 Demo Day 2
by BinaryIdiot on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @12:01PM
(#12352970)
> So then the terrorist coats their drone in foil, and instead you are blinding anybody who looks at the drone when you fire.
Many of the laser systems the military have been working with are not in the visual spectrum and foil would not simply reflect it. Otherwise the majority of our anti missile systems that use lasers would be thwarted by a simple foil coating.
> No, kinetic or nets is much better.
All depends on the goal. A quick burnout with a laser which has no reload time and can hit targets in a near instant is highly valuable in anti missile systems; I don't see why this couldn't be applied in an anti drone fashion as well. Kinetics will serve to obliterate which is better as far as falling debris goes; might be useful to have a combination of both in case you have to fend off a larger than expected amount of drones.
While I completely agree with you I'm curious if the pricing has come down on powerful lasers as I could see it being more economical to simply burn the rogue drones out of the sky. It would make re-targeting much faster and less of a need to keep kinetic...material on hand.