Re:How once-elusive laser weapons suddenly became a reality
by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Thursday November 26, 2020 @08:48AM
(#25219969)
Can lasers be steered with phase shifting as radar can?
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Re:How once-elusive laser weapons suddenly became a reality
by jasonwatkinspdx on Thursday November 26, 2020 @03:19PM
(#25223231)
Not to the same extent. Each element in a radar phased array has a wide angle of emission, and the overlap is necessary to produce the final aggregate steered beam. Lasers need to have as low dispersion as possible to be useful at range, so they can't do that. The project above used some other means of pointing for broad beam steering. The phase shifters are just such that each individual laser is closer to constructive vs destructive interference at the target surface.