Calhoun: The NPS Institutional Archive DSpace Repository Theses and Dissertations 1. Thesis and Dissertation Collection, all items 2019-09 EFFECTIVENESS OF LASER WEAPONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA Kui, Jie Ren Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School http://hdl.handle.net/10945/63470 Downloaded from NPS Archive: Calhoun NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS EFFECTIVENESS OF LASER WEAPONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA by Jie Ren Kui September 2019 Co-Advisors: Joseph A. Blau Keith R. Cohn Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK Form Approved OMB REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instruction, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (0704-0188) Washington, DC 20503. 1. AGENCY USE ONLY 2. REPORT DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED (Leave blank) September 2019 Master's thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5. FUNDING NUMBERS EFFECTIVENESS OF LASER WEAPONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA 6. AUTHOR(S) Jie Ren Kui 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING Naval Postgraduate School ORGANIZATION REPORT Monterey, CA 93943-5000 NUMBER 9. SPONSORING / MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND 10. SPONSORING / ADDRESS(ES) MONITORING AGENCY N/A REPORT NUMBER 11. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. 12a. DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY STATEMENT 12b. DISTRIBUTION CODE Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. A 13. ABSTRACT (maximum 200 words) In recent years, Southeast Asia (SEA) has seen many of Islamic State’s (IS) supporters returned home after fighting in the Middle East. The tactics and warfighting knowledge that they have learned, such as the making of homemade rockets and IEDs, could actually be applied in SEA as well, causing SEA to be a high potential as the next cauldron of violence. This thesis will investigate the effectiveness of laser weapons under the conditions of rain or haze. Laser propagation in these environments will be modelled by varying the total extinction coefficient, which changes as the atmosphere changes. The extinction coefficients for the simulations will be obtained from MODTRAN and/or MPLNET. The effects on the peak intensities and dwell time required on two different targets (rocket and UAV) when haze or rain is present will be analyzed. 14. SUBJECT TERMS 15. NUMBER OF High Energy Laser, laser propagation, environment PAGES 93 16. PRICE CODE 17. SECURITY 18. SECURITY 19. SECURITY 20. LIMITATION OF CLASSIFICATION OF CLASSIFICATION OF THIS CLASSIFICATION OF ABSTRACT REPORT PAGE ABSTRACT Unclassified Unclassified Unclassified UU NSN 7540-01-280-5500 Standard Form 298 (Rev. 2-89) Prescribed by ANSI Std. 239-18 i THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ii Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. EFFECTIVENESS OF LASER WEAPONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA Jie Ren Kui Major, Republic of Singapore Air Force BE, National University of Singapore, 2011 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMBAT SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY from the NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL September 2019 Approved by: Joseph A. Blau Co-Advisor Keith R. Cohn Co-Advisor Kevin B. Smith Chair, Department of Physics iii THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK iv ABSTRACT In recent years, Southeast Asia (SEA) has seen many of Islamic State’s (IS) supporters returned home after fighting in the Middle East. The tactics and warfighting knowledge that they have learned, such as the making of homemade rockets and IEDs, could actually be applied in SEA as well, causing SEA to be a high potential as the next cauldron of violence. This thesis will investigate the effectiveness of laser weapons under the conditions of rain or haze. Laser propagation in these environments will be modelled by varying the total extinction coefficient, which changes as the atmosphere changes. The extinction coefficients for the simulations will be obtained from MODTRAN and/or MPLNET. The effects on the peak intensities and dwell time required on two different targets (rocket and UAV) when haze or rain is present will be analyzed. v THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK vi TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1 II. OVERVIEW OF HIGH-ENERGY LASERS .....................................................3 A. TYPES OF LASERS..................................................................................3 1. Gas/Chemical Lasers .....................................................................4 2. Free Electron Lasers ......................................................................4 3. Solid State Lasers ...........................................................................5 B. ATMOSPHERIC PROPAGATION MODEL .......................................6 1. Extinction ........................................................................................8 2. Turbulence ....................................................................................11 3. Thermal Blooming .......................................................................12 4. Lidar and the Atmosphere ..........................................................12 C. TARGET DAMAGE PHYSICS .............................................................17 1. Power-in-the-Bucket ....................................................................18 2. Irradiance .....................................................................................18 3. Fluence ..........................................................................................18 III. ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA AND POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF HEL IN SEA ...................................................................21 A. ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTHEAST ASIA ..........................................21 1. High Humidity and Rainfall ......................................................22 2. Haze ...............................................................................................23 B. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF HEL .............................................24 IV. SIMULATION OF HEL APPLICATION IN SEA ..........................................27 A. FRESNEL DIFFRACTION MODEL ....................................................27 1. Huygens-Fresnel Principle ..........................................................27 2. Solving Fresnel Diffraction as a Convolution ............................29 B. SCALING METHOD ..............................................................................30 C. MPLNET/AERONET DATASETS FROM 7SEAS PROGRAM .......31 1. AERONET Sun Photometer .......................................................32 2. Micro-Pulse Lidar ........................................................................34 D. MODTRAN ..............................................................................................36 E. SIMULATED SCENARIOS ...................................................................37 V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..........................................................................41 vii A. VALIDATION OF SIMULATION RESULTS USING FRESNEL DIFFRACTION METHOD .................................................41 B. COMPARISON OF AEROSOL EXTINCTION COEFFICIENT FROM MPLNET WITH MODTRAN ...................................................43 C. EFFECTS OF HAZE ON LASER PROPAGATION ..........................46 D. EFFECTS OF RAIN ON LASER PROPAGATION ...........................52 E. SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS ON 122MM ROCKET ENGAGEMENT ......................................................................................61 VI. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................65 LIST OF REFERENCES ................................................................................................67 INITIAL DISTRIBUTION LIST ...................................................................................73 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Troposphere and sublayers within. Source: [15]. ........................................7 Figure 2. Effects of aerosols on extinction coefficient with red and black lines representing the effects with or without aerosols, respectively. Source: [20]. .................................................................................................9 Figure 3. Change in energy level from absorption of photon ...................................10 Figure 4. Intensity contours in the x-y plane for increasing turbulence ; Cn2=0 (vacuum) (a), Cn2=10-14 m-2/3 (moderate turbulence) (b), and Cn2=10-13 m-2/3 (severe turbulence), generated using NRL propagation code HELCAP (c). Source: [21]. ...........................................11 Figure 5. Typical setup of a lidar system. Source: [22] ............................................14 Figure 6.