Helicopters protected from heat-seeking missiles

‘Battlefield terrain in places like Afghanistan and Iraq can be so rough that our troops have often had to rely on helicopters, and they can be easy targets for enemies with shoulder-launched missiles,’ said Mohammed Islam, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

‘Our lasers give off a signal that’s like throwing sand in the eyes of the missile.’

Using off-the-shelf telecommunications fibre optics, Islam is developing rugged and portable ‘mid-infrared supercontinuum lasers’ that could blind heat-seeking weapons from a distance of 1.8 miles away.

The technology is being commercialised through Islam’s company, Omni Sciences, which has recently received $1m in grants from the US Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build a second-generation prototype. The army grant amounts to $730,000 and the DARPA funding is worth $300,000.

The lasers are promising for helicopter protection because their design can withstand helicopter flight and their mid-infrared supercontinuum mode can jam missile sensors.