Weapon, to make a thunder deliver a precise lightning

LIPC is a technology already in application with multiple defense contractors competing for market share. The process utilizes ground based, vehicle/vessel platforms, and satellite based capabilities. Through the use of lasers, electromagnetic potential is established between atmospheric electricity and ground. Thus providing a pathway for discharge of that stored energy.

While the technology has existed for many decades, to perform this, advances in laser/maser power density factors have improved performance, immensely. Current advances in units fitted for satellite application has improved coverage and range.

METHODS OF USE: 1) To kill or incapacitate a human target through electric shock. 2) To seriously damage, disable, or destroy any electric or electronic devices in the target. 3) As electrolasers and natural lightning both use plasma channels to conduct electric current, an electrolaser can set up a light-induced plasma channel for uses such as: a) To study lightning b) During a thunderstorm, to make lightning discharge at a safe time and place, as with a lightning conductor.[2] c) Directing atmospheric lightning to a terrestrial collection station for the purpose of electrical power generation. d) As a weapon, to make a thunderhead deliver a precise lightning strike onto a target from an aircraft; in this case, the aircraft and laser can be compared to a triggered spark gap, in that the relatively minor amount of initial input from the laser allows a large amount of energy to flow between the cloud and the ground.

https://www.facebook.com/AMicrowavedPlanet/posts/374494862740503

First image ~ captured by Google Street View in Romania. http://google-street-view.com/…/google-street-view-lightnin…

Second image ~ ‘straight line lightning in Zimbabwe http://earthsky.org/t…/rare-straight-lightning-over-zimbabwe

Examples

Other posible target: Warehouse blast China: Tjian Tjin

A lightning bolt travels horizontally down a plasma channel from the LIPC before deviating when it gets close to the target which offers a lower-resistance path to the ground: U.S. Army.

Thought that title might get your attention, but shooting lightning bolts down laser beams is just what a device being developed at the Picatinny Arsenal military research facility in New Jersey is designed to do. Known as a Laser-Induced Plasma Channel, or LIPC, the device would fry targets that conduct electricity better that the air or ground that surrounds them by steering lightning bolts down a plasma pathway created by laser beams.

The pathway takes the form of an electrically conductive plasma channel that is formed when a laser beam of enough intensity (a 50 billion watt pulse lasting two-trillionths of a second will do) forms an electro-magnetic field strong enough to ionize the surrounding air to form plasma. Because the plasma channel conducts electricity much better than the non-ionized air that surrounds it, electrical energy will travel down the channel.

Then, when it hits its target — an enemy vehicle, person or unexploded ordnance, for example — the current will flow through the target as it follows the path of least resistance to the ground, potentially disabling the vehicle or person and detonating the ordnance. The lightning will also deviate from the channel when it gets close to the target and finds a lower-resistance path to the ground.

That’s the basic physics behind it, but overcoming the technical challenges to actually build the device won’t be easy.

“If the light focuses in air, there is certainly the danger that it will focus in a glass lens, or in other parts of the laser amplifier system, destroying it,” said George Fischer, lead scientist on the project. “We needed to lower the intensity in the optical amplifier and keep it low until we wanted the light to self-focus in air.”

The research team also had to synchronize the laser with the high voltage and ruggedize the device so it could be operated under extreme environmental conditions. There is, of course, also the problem of providing enough power to operate the device for extended periods of time. Despite these challenges, the team claims to have made notable progress in recent months after reporting “excellent results” in tests conducted in January, 2012.

Work on the device is continuing.