By Bradley Hicks, AEDC/PA / Published February 16, 2021
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.
Throughout 2020, the 704th Test Group’s Operating Location AA, part of the Directed Energy Combined Test Force, or DE CTF, focused much of its effort on the testing of weapons designed to prevent adversarial drone observation and assault.
The latest system tested, the High Energy Laser Weapon System 2, also known as HELWS2 or H2, is a counter-Unmanned Aerial System (c-UAS) directed energy weapon (DEW).
H2 was tested as part of a directed energy experiment that began in the spring of 2020 and was managed by the Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation, or SDPE, office. This experiment has involved taking commercial off the shelf systems and deploying them to several Combatant Commands, or COCOMs, for training, testing and evaluation for a one-year period.