DEPS Short Courses

Course Description: This lecture will introduce the field of HEL weapons and their associated technologies using an interweaving of technical requirements, history, and accomplishments. The basic attributes of HEL weapons will be covered, leading into discussions of laser-material interaction, lethality, potential weapon applications, system requirements, laser power scaling, propagation, and beam control. DoD interest in tactical applications, current technical issues, and areas of research emphasis will be highlighted.

Intended Audience: This course is geared to those with a technical background who seek an overview of HEL technology and the current state of the art. Individuals who are beginning to work in the field or technical managers who wish an integrated overview would benefit from the class.

Instructor Biography: Mr. John Wachs worked as a civilian employee for the Army in Huntsville, AL during his entire 42 year career, which was devoted to directed energy (DE) research and development. The first part of his career focused on field testing of high energy laser devices. For the remainder of his career, Mr. Wachs managed the development and testing of DE systems for both tactical and strategic military applications. Since his retirement from Army civilian service in 2010, he has provided part time support to the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office through Schafer Corporation as a greybeard advisor.

Course Description: This course will provide an introduction to RF Directed Energy weapons, also known as High Power Microwave (HPM) weapons. The course consists of four parts: 1) a general introduction to the basic terms and concepts, 2) a discussion of the varous types of effects that can be induced and how they are characterized, 3) the technologies that enable RF-DEW weaponization, and 4) hardening techniques and technologies.

At the end of the class, students will know what RF-DEWs are and how they differ from classical Electronic Warfare and nuclear EMP. Students will learn the various ways in which microwaves couple into a target (i.e., front door/back door, in-band/out-of-band) and some of the many sorts of effects that they can precipitate. Technology discussions will show the difference between narrow band (NB) and ultra-wide band (UWB) sources, antennas and diagnostics, as well as the principal elements of the power systems needed to support them. The course concludes with a discussion of hardening techniques and technologies.

Intended Audience: Newcomers to the field of RF-DEW or managers with some background in science and engineering will benefit the most from this course.

Instructor Biography: Dr. Mark Rader works in high power RF-DEW research at the Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Alabama.

Course Description: This course will provide an overview of the joint targeting process. It will begin with Targeting Fundamentals which explains the targeting process, roles and responsibilities and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA). It will then explain intelligence requirements for directed energy, highlighting uncertainties and shortfalls experienced during DE testing conducted by AFRL. The course will end by describing work done to overcome the deficiencies. It includes information from the Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual Directed Energy and Non-Lethal Working Group and the process AFRL used in RFW testing. CHAMP participation in the Terminal Fury exercise will be used as an example throughout the short course.

Intended Audience: This course is designed for program managers who are thinking of transitioning their program to operational use. Understanding the targeting process and how directed energy fits into it may guide some program decisions so the system can be supported during transition.

Instructor Biography: Mr. Michael (Mike) Bernard is a Systems Analyst for the Air Force Research Laboratory, Phillip’s Research Site (PRS), located at Kirtland AFB, NM. He supports both the Directed Energy and Space Vehicles Chief Scientists in the performance of Technological Assessments of foreign directed energy and space technology. He also supports all PRS Technical Leads in strategic planning to ensure future blue technology in directed energy and space vehicles is superior to red technology. Mr. Bernard received his B.S. in Operations Research/Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and M.S. equivalence in Nuclear Engineering from the Navy Nuclear Power Program. Mr. Bernard served 23 years in the Navy successfully completing tours culminating in being responsible for the Dry-dock overhaul of a Nuclear Aircraft Carrier, Commanding Officer of the Naval Warfare Assessment Division specializing in missile flight telemetry, the Pacific Fleet Special Program Manager/PACOM Naval STO representative and the Pacific Fleet Information Warfare Officer. In his current position, Mr. Bernard has briefed the National Intelligence Committee, Office of the Director of National Intelligence- Science and Technology, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and Office of the Secretary of Defense (Intelligence). Mr. Bernard is a current member of the Directed Energy Professional Society and chaired the Technological Assessment of DE Capability session at the Fifteenth Annual Directed Energy Symposium, November 2012.

Course 4. HPM Simulation Management Software and ICEPIC HPM source modeling software

Course Description: The High Powered Microwave High Performance Computing Software Applications Institute (HPM HSAI) software suite is designed to perform high fidelity simulations of a full, integrated HPM system, from basic components, such as pulse power, source, and antenna, to evaluating battlefield effectiveness. This class is intended for potential users of the HPM HSAI software suite who have a basic familiarity with scientific and engineering level simulations and have physics and/or engineering degrees. Instruction on simulation codes that form the HPM HSAI software suite such as Joint RF Effects Model (JREM) and the Improved Concurrent Electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell (ICEPIC) are intended as introductions to the capabilities and operation of the software.

The ICEPIC code was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate to evaluate High Power Microwave system performance. The ICEPIC code enables virtual prototyping of an HPM source or system using physics based 3-D tim dependent Finite Difference Time Domain and particle-in-cell methods. The HPM Simulation Management Software (HSMS) provides a graphical user interface that enables the assembly of multi-level and multi-physics codes to simulate both the operation and military effectiveness of an HPM system. The HSMS software enables easy access to and management of simulations performed on the defense shared resources center (DSRC) supercomputers which are available to research DOD organizations. This tutorial will provide a hands-on demonstration of how to simulate various devices using ICEPIC within the HSMS framework. In addition, the class will provide a tutorial on pre and post processing tools such as visualization, parameter scan, and optimization tools that can be used with ICEPIC. The end goal of the course is to have the user leave with the software and the knowledge of how to develop simulations which accurately predict the performance of an HPM system or other plasma/vacuum electromagnetic device.

Intended Audience: Students who can profit from your course are technical personnel with at least an undergraduate education in science or engineering. Some experience in the field of high performance computing, high powered microwave systems and scientific/engineering simulation will greatly improve the utility of the course to the student.

Instructor Biography: Dr. Nathaniel Lockwood earned his B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Physics and his MS and PhD from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He is a plasma physicist with more than 13 years of experience in leading, developing, managing, and simulating defense related technologies and 12 years of experience as an officer in the USAF. His expertise includes collisional plasma phenomenology and transport, relativistic electron beam interactions with matter, gas chemical kinetics, terahertz explosives detection, electronic warfare, High Power Microwave (HPM) devices and field emission electron guns. He has developed and implemented several computational models and performed numerous investigative studies of plasma-material interactions, high power microwave and terahertz source components, and electronic warfare systems.

Course Description: This course offers an overview of current major challenges in thermal management of lasers/electro-optical components/systems and it describes prospective solutions. Students will learn how to approach thermal management from the system engineering point-of-view, become familiar with prospective solutions, and will be introduced to techniques for conducting trade analyses. Significant portion of the course will be devoted to enduring challenges in thermal management, namely handling of high-heat flux loads, dealing with high-power momentary loads, cryogenic cooling, and thermal management on military land/air vehicles. Numerous examples from specific projects and lessons learned will be described. Methodologies, solution toolbox, and extensive references to in-depth information will be provided in printed course material. Topics include:

Intended Audience: This course is aimed at systems engineers, project engineers/managers/planners, and electro-optical engineers /scientists, but thermal management experts will also benefit from attending. Undergraduate education in science and engineering is beneficial.

Instructor Biography: John Vetrovec is an internationally recognized scientist, engineer, and innovator with over 34 years of extensive technical and management experience in aerospace. His innovations enabled hundreds of $M in new business revenues, most notably the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL). From 1978 to 1988 John was a lead engineer and project manager at TRW Inc. in Redondo Beach, CA (now Northrop Grumman Space Technologies or NGST) where he conducted research in energetic particle beams, chemical and free electron lasers, nuclear fusion, plasma physics, thermal management, aerodynamics, spacecraft design, cryogenic vacuum pumps, and rocket propulsion. Since 1988 until his departure in 2006, John was a Technical Fellow at Boeing Lasers & Electro-Optics in West Hills, CA, where he led research, system definition and hardware development projects electromagnetics, semiconductor laser diodes, diode-pumped solid-state lasers, chemical lasers, thermal management, terahertz (THz) imaging technologies, kinetic missile interceptors, and missile defense. In 2007, John founded Aqwest. John is widely acclaimed as a versatile and prolific innovator/author with over 50 U.S. Patents issued or pending and over 70 technical publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings. His notable accomplishments include 1) construction of 100-MW neutral particle beam lines at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), 2) the development of a MW-class free electron laser at LLNL and at Boeing, and 3) initial system design/trades and technology development for the Airborne Laser (ABL), 4) the development of cryogenic zeolite vacuum pump which enabled the ATL, and the development of the disk laser. Many of his inventions were seminal and laid a path to further development. John has extensive theoretical and practical experience with thermal management of broad variety of components and systems ranging from watts to MW of heat load, from cryogenic to high-temperature, and on land and air platforms. He has been honored and profiled in the November 2003 issue of the Frontiers magazine published by The Boeing Company (circ. ~350,000), also available online at www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2003/november/i_people3.html. John has a BA and MA in Mathematics and an MS in EE/plasma physics, all from UCLA. He is a member of AIAA, SAE, IEEE, ASME, SPIE, and DEPS. John is the founder and president of Aqwest.

Course Description: This course addresses how to characterize and quantify the major effects of the atmosphere on directed energy weapons propagation. A first principles atmospheric propagation and characterization code called the Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference (LEEDR) is described and demonstrated. LEEDR enables the creation of climatologically- or numerical weather prediction (NWP)-derived vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, water vapor content, optical turbulence, and atmospheric particulates and hydrometeors as they relate to line-by-line or band-averaged layer extinction coefficient magnitude at any wavelength from 350 nm to 8.6 m. Additionally, LEEDR provides overland cloud-free-line of sight (CFLOS) assessments and access to and export of the Extreme and Percentile Environmental Reference Tables (ExPERT) database data.

Intended Audience:US Government personnel and their direct contractors who have program requirements for or are interested in methods and tools to assess realistic environments and environmental effects for modeling and simulation, mission planning, and/or military systems operations. The course assumes the students have some technical background in radiative transfer through the atmosphere--either via an undergraduate degree or career experience.

Instructor Biography: Steven T. Fiorino received his BS degrees in geography and meteorology from Ohio State (1987) and Florida State (1989) universities. He additionally holds an MS in atmospheric dynamics from Ohio State (1993) and a PhD in physical meteorology from Florida State (2002). He is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with 21 years of service and currently a research associate professor of atmospheric physics within the Engineering Physics Department at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and is the director of the Center for Directed Energy. His research interests include microwave remote sensing, development of weather signal processing algorithms, and atmospheric effects on military systems such as high-energy lasers and weapons of mass destruction.

Jaclyn E. Schmidt has four years of experience supporting the intelligence and remote sensing communities by providing atmospheric support for modeling and simulation tools such as the Laser Environmental Effects Definition and Reference tool (LEEDR) and bathymetric analysis for the Naval Oceanographic Office. She received her BS degree in meteorology from the University of South Alabama in 2010. Ms. Schmidt also has nearly two years of experience working in an atmospheric science related field and two years in the oceanographic science related field. As the LEEDR point of contact, she supports the Center for Directed Energy (CDE)-AFIT mission in directed energy, laser intelligence, and remote sensing through atmospheric effects and modeling research. Her research interests include atmospheric effects applications to earth and environmental remote sensing as they relate to the intelligence community.

Course 7. Laser Propagation

Classification: Unclassified, Public Release

Instructors:
- Robert Praus, MZA Associates Corporation
- Matthew Whiteley, MZA Associates Corporation

Duration: Half-day course, starts at 0800 Friday 11 March

CEUs awarded: 0.35

Course Description: Theoretical and applied analysis of laser propagation, including propagation through random media, will be taught. The first half of the course will provide the fundamental theories of free space propagation and propagation through random media including scattering, absorption, and wave front effects. The fundamentals of the modeling of atmospheric phenomena shall also be given. The second half of the course will cover the computation of laser propagation effects using statistical and wave-optics approaches. Students will be introduced to the modeling of laser propagation using SHaRE and WaveTrain software tools. The fundamentals of atmospheric compensation will be reviewed.

Intended Audience: Students should have an undergraduate-level understanding of mathematics and physics and be familiar with scientific computing. The course will be of interest to program managers, systems engineers, and modelers of surveillance and laser systems to be employed in the open atmosphere.

Instructor Biographies: Mr. Robert Praus is co-founder and President of MZA Associates Corporation, a company that has distinguished itself in the analysis, design, and implementation of beam control systems. Mr. Praus was stationed at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in 1981 where he specialized data analysis and programming for the Airborne Laser Laboratory (ALL) and the development of the Wavefront Control System Simulation (WCSS). From 1985 to 1987, he continued his involvement in the development of end-to-end wave-optics simulation at the BDM Corporation and RDA Logicon. From 1989 to 1991, he served as software manager of the National Test Facility (NTF), now the MDA MDIOC. Since founding MZA in 1991, he has provided technical management, analysis, and modeling support to numerous atmospheric characterization and beam control projects including HABE, ABLEX, ABLE ACE, the ABL-ACT North Oscura Peak (NOP) facility, ALTB, DLWS, ARMS, TRMS, ELLA, HELFAD, and HEFL HBDS. He served as the principal investigator for MZA's Airborne Laser (ABL) modeling effort in support of the ABL SPO and was the primary designer and implementer of the ABL beam control system model. Under Mr. Praus' leadership, MZA has become a leading manufacturer of high energy laser beam control systems and components. MZA is only one of two world-wide manufacturers of high power deformable mirrors. Mr. Praus presently supports the design and engineering of beam control components and subsystems for advanced imaging and tactical laser weapon systems.

Dr. Matthew Whiteley is Vice President and Senior Scientist for MZA Associates Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Whiteley's background includes 25 years of experience in electro-optical imaging, laser radar, pattern recognition, image processing, atmospheric and adaptive optics, computer modeling of optical propagation, and turbulence characterization. Dr. Whiteley's academic background includes laser engineering, optics, optical propagation theory, random processes, statistical estimation, and image processing. Dr. Whiteley’s Air Force experience included work in laser radar terminal guidance for precision-guided munitions as well as Airborne Laser beam control testing and modeling. Dr. Whiteley holds U.S. patents for turbulence diagnostics and is the inventor of the differential-tilt turbulence profiler currently in use by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Dr. Whiteley currently leads MZA’s efforts in laser sensing, tactical laser, and aero-optics beam control. Dr. Whiteley is the principal author of the SHaRE code, a MATLAB toolbox for HEL system performance analysis. Dr. Whiteley has given many tutorials and taught graduate courses in the use of WaveTrain for wave-optics modeling of laser propagation, adaptive optics, and imaging

Course Description: This course provides a general overview of directed energy weapons, including high energy laser (HEL) and high power microwave (HPM) systems. The emphasis is on the operationally distinguishing characteristics of systems nearing deployment. A special feature of the course is the availability of system simulators for use by the students. The simulators are being provided by AEgis Technologies Group and by Schafer Corporation. Topics to be covered include:

Intended Audience: This course is intended for students without a technical background as an introduction to the operational characteristics of HEL and HPM systems.

Instructor Biography: Dan A. “Tanna” Isbell is a retired USAF Colonel. He currently works as a Test Engineering Subject Matter Expert, Technology Integration Consultant, and a Directed Energy Instructor. His accredited degrees include Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering (BAE) from the Georgia Institute of Technology in1977 (AFROTC Distinguished Graduate); Master of Science in Human Resources Management, Troy State University in1989; Master of Science in National Resource Strategy, National Defense University in 1998 (Distinguished Graduate). He is also a graduate and former Instructor for the USAF Test Pilot School (Class 84B #1 Distinguished Graduate; Top Pilot and Top Academics Awards). In addition, his professional military education includes Squadron Officer School, Air Command & Staff College, Air War College, Defense Systems Management Program Manager’s Course and Senior Acquisition Course, and Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF, Distinguished Graduate, majored in Advanced Manufacturing). He is certified Level III in Program Management and Test & Evaluation.

Dan served in many varied capacities during his over 26-yearAir Force career including Fighter Pilot (receiving numerous Top Pilot/Top Gun Awards), Instructor Pilot, Evaluation Pilot, Experimental Test Pilot, Instructor Test Pilot (with over 2,700 hours in over 65 different aircraft types), F-16 Program Director of Test, Flight Test Squadron Commander, Operations Research Systems Analyst for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Pentagon), F-22 Air Vehicle Development Program Manager, and Chief of the Weapons Systems Sector (Kinetic and Directed Energy Weapons) for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), led a National Team for the development and fielding of a new Battlefield Air Operations (BAO) Kit. After active duty retirement, he was hired to help AFRL as a Solid State Laser Program Consultant, and has continued to work in several technology integration consulting capacities. He currently also teaches a High Energy Laser Weapons Course designed for non-technical warfighters to better understand HEL Weapons capabilities for future combat applications.

Dan’s military medals include: Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal (with 4 devices), Air Medal, and Aerial Achievement Medal. His awards include: The Liethen-Tittle Award for Top Graduate of USAFTPS, Class 84B; 2004 AFRL Top Team; 2004 AFRL Commander’s Cup Award. He is also a member of the international Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) and the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).

Course Description: This half day short course covers the general subject of high power laser beam quality. Topics covered include: definitions and applications of common measures of beam quality including Brightness, Power-in-the-bucket, M-squared, 'times diffraction limited', strehl ratio, beam parameter product etc. Special emphasis will be given to choosing an appropriate beam quality metric, tracing the metric to the application of the laser system and to various conceptual pitfalls which arise in this field. Material presented will come from general scientific literature as well as original work done by Dr. Ross and Dr. Pete Latham, both from the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate.

Intended Audience: This course should benefit anyone with an interest in laser beam quality, including program managers, scientists, engineers, and military personnel who are not experts in the field.

Instructor Biography: Dr. Sean Ross has been with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate, High Power Solid State Laser Branch since he received his PhD from the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) in 1998. Research interests include nonlinear frequency conversion, high power solid state lasers, thermal management and laser beam quality. Beginning in 2000, frustration with commercial beam quality devices led to the work eventually presented in the Journal of Directed Energy, Vol. 2 No. 1 Summer 2006 "Appropriate Measures and Consistent Standard for High Energy Laser Beam Quality". This paper and its conference version (presented at the 2005 DEPS Symposium) have received awards from the Directed Energy Professional Society and the Directed Energy Directorate.

Classification: Unclassified, Distribution D (Limited to DoD and DoD Contractors)

Course Description: The course will cover beam directors from the requirements and parameter that determine the overall approach to the development of a strategy to acquire and integrate a beam director into an HEL system. Subjects include:

Intended Audience: Program managers, lead engineers, systems engineers of HEL systems that will include a beam director. A technical background is useful, but not required.

Instructor Biography: Mr. Decker's 38 year career includes active duty, industry, university and now DAU experience. He received a BS in Engineering from Cornell University and a MS in Physics from the Naval Postgraduate School and performed additional graduate work at the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center. Mr. Decker's Army 20 year Army career included assignments as Test Officer for Electro-Optics Test; Assistant Professor of Physics at the US Military Academy and Research and Development Coordinator at the Army's Night Vision and Electro-Optics Center. After retirement from the Army, he spent three years with ITT Night Vision as the Manager of Advanced Technology Programs and eleven years with Brashear, a Division of L-3 Communications where he was a program manager, product line manager and business developer, extensively involved in DE programs.

Last updated: 5 June 2018