The Air Force builds a virtual test range for directed energy weapons

When it comes to directed energy technologies like lasers and microwave weapons, the Air Force doesn’t have anything that’s quite ready to deploy on a fighter jet. But a new modeling and simulation facility at Kirtland Air Force base is going to try to make sure pilots are ready to use them once they are. The Air Force Research Laboratory just awarded a 10-year, $80 million contract to build a new “virtual range” for directed energy weapons. To learn more, Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu talked with Christopher Hurlburt, deputy principal investigator for modeling and simulation at AFRL.