RAF pilots are on the brink of receiving cutting-edge air protection with a laser self-protection system, after successful trials proved its capability to defend against missile threats.

The system was tested in Sweden, achieving a 100% success rate in intercepting multiple infrared heat-seeking missiles.

The air protection laser is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), and industry partners Leonardo UK and Thales UK, known collectively as Team Pellonia. The system will be fitted to RAF aircraft like the Shadow R2 and A400M transporter, enabling them to swiftly identify and neutralise missile threats.

During the live-fire trial at the Vidsel Test Range in Sweden, the system intercepted and defeated multiple missile targets with pinpoint accuracy. The success of the trials demonstrates the capability of Thales’s Elix-IR threat warning system and Leonardo’s Miysis directed infrared countermeasure to provide state-of-the-art protection for UK forces.

Defence Secretary John Healey spoke of the importance of advanced defence technology: “Identifying, tracking and defeating threats from the air in seconds is crucial to having the edge over those who try to do us harm. We’re equipping our Armed Forces with the very latest technology to keep them safe and give them the advantage on operations.”

Mark Elson, Chief for Air Survivability at Dstl, also highlighted the importance of innovation and collaboration: “The UK defensive aids system is the culmination of MOD’s detailed understanding of changing threats alongside years of sustained defence investment in science and technology nurtured within Dstl. This has been aligned with the development capabilities of our commercial partners through Team Pellonia.”

The system uses advanced algorithms to filter out background noise, detecting only valid threats, which are then neutralised by the laser with precision targeting. Senior military officials from NATO countries observed the trials.

Leonardo’s Senior Vice-President of Radar and Advanced Targeting, Mark Stead, remarked: “Miysis DIRCM has again proven itself as a reliable, effective protection system and is flying operationally on many platforms today.”

Stephen McCann, Managing Director of Thales Optronics & Missile Electronics UK, also expressed pride in the technology’s performance, stating: “Elix-IR has proved its world leading capabilities as the latest generation multi-function infrared threat warning system.”

The system will support around 1,950 jobs across Scotland.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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101 COMMENTS

    • This shows the difference between a real Air Force and a collection of old planes. It’s easy to look at airforces like china and Russia and compare them with ours on numbers but the reality is the things like defensive aids are likely to give us massive kill ratio advantages. Any aircraft that’s not the latest upgraded 4.5 gen or 5th gen will be little good for anything except catching bullets.

    • Laser dazzle tech isn’t particularly secret. DIRCM is a Leonardo (UK) piece of tech, but other manufacturers will have something available too.

    • Leonardo claim otherwise, saying it’s small and suitable for helicopters. Everything is relative, of course. From a picture in an article, I’d eyeball it to fit in a metre-long pod.

      • Isn’t that square thing the mounting?
        In that case it looks like it just attaches to the side or underside panels of the plane and works from there.
        As it’s a permanent measure, no need to carry on a hard point.

        • You’ll either be able the have it in the pod shown in the bottom photo of the Aviationist article, or build it into the structure. I don’t know if the grey square in the top photo is a typical operational mounting. I wonder if it’s part of a test rig.

          • The square doesn’t look like a ground rig, too self contained and the motion mounting plate doesn’t look specially designed for the purpose.
            That sort of rig might work well for large or slow things like A400 or helicopters.
            Haven’t had a look at your article yet, will check back.

      • We’ve already fitted other DIRCM units on helos…and on other large aircraft

        I suspect GCAP will come with 360 DIRCM as well…

  3. Why haven’t we heard about this before?
    A great development, I can’t think of any other countries developing something similar.
    Now but loads and stick them on every plane we have.

    • There are lots of lazer type systems in testing. Some are currently being rolled out (Stryker mounted 10kw Lazer for drone protection).
      All good stuff 👍

    • I often wonder just what we have up our sleeves that is not acknowledged, until it is needed.
      I hope some of the vast defence budget we have has gone into such things, especially in the offensive cyber area.

      • Hi Daniele, yes thinking just the same. Hopefully there’s much more tech developments that are kept until they are needed. Always best to give the impression that we are a bit slow. Then any foes get a shock slap in the face when things kick off!
        Cheers
        George

      • Hi mate. I may have said it before. But its amazing what kit suddenly becomes available when needs must. We have many capabilities and kit that is pretty hush hush.

        • Like truck launched ASRAAM and Brimestone missiles in Ukraine.

          Stormshadow deployed in the gulf several years before it was suppose to be finished.

        • The R&D budget was increased under Blair when he was to UKFMS wasn’t acceptable to Washington.

          ITAR further focussed things and just as focus wavered the Tangerine Tinted Buffon was a think.

          Then UKR was a thing which meant R&D suddenly was flavour of the month and was more interesting to ministers that the usual Army arguments around QEC ate my tanks.

      • Interestingly when French Rafales fought against Egyptian SU 35’s the SU35’s were unable to lock on to them when the French had their defensive aid system on. I would imagine much the same in any combat situation with the latest western aircraft against Russian and Chinese aircraft. They probably don’t realise just how far behind they are.

        We saw some other spooky parallels when Panzir air defence missile were unable to lock on to a storm shadow they were pointing right at.

        Just look at the vast cost of maintenance and upgrades for typhoon and F35 and the Russian’s spend nothing on this type of thing.

          • Yes AESA radars can upload code through a radar receiver to carry out a cyber attack and interfere with the communications of an air defence network and that’s just the stuff we know of.

          • ??
            You do understand how AESA and normal radars work?
            Guessing not.
            You cannot upload code into a radar via the receiver.

          • Yes and no. Got to be careful here. In the strictest sense an AESA radar can be used for data communications. Within the transmitted signal be that pulse or continuous wave you can multiplex another signal on top. You can also turn the transmitter/receiver into a data-link. The reflected signal the receiver is looking for must contain the same pattern or a Doppler shifted pattern. So it can recognize it or a change. Which is where very expensive signal processing comes in. A good example of this is the F35’s APG-81. Which can do simultaneous radar searching and data-linking.

            My thesis for my degree was on multiplexing radar with data-linking. The practical part included building a very basic AESA radar that could do searching and tracking, whilst handshaking with a node, then upload/download data. Which in my case was a mp3 music file. Whilst the radar was tracking a foil covered tennis ball. Amazing what you can do with a Raspberry Pi, some x-band garage door transceivers and a whopping graphics card.

          • It is worth bearing in mind how simple the picture IR missiles see is. The 1st gen literally headed for the best spot. 2nd gen had some ability to look at velocity. 3rd gen could see an IR image (of sorts). Current state of the art is blended but you’d be amazed how well defined the imaging now is if you’d seen previous efforts. Just think of your mobile phone camera from Nokia 6320 to IPhone16 4k video.

            So the software behind it is very significant. As is the precise flavour(s) of sensor.

            Also why combining IR with other sensor technologies allows discrimination of spoofing.

        • It would be nigh on impossible for French Rafales to cross Swords with Egyptian SU35’s seeing as Egypt has never operated them 🙄.

      • Some very clever people. I have read the odd piece in the past that suggested this or that ‘breakthrough’ only for the matter to go quiet … Good. Thousands of C.C.P. STEM students in Blighty’s universities is a bit of a worry however.

        • Because we’re mugs?
          I have read of trials years ago of some sort of “lens” attached to vehicles on SPTA which replicate the terrain beyond the vehicle, as to make the subject “invisible” I don’t think I’m explaining the tech properly but also seen it on Twitter for applications to smaller objects and people.
          What happened to that tech?
          I’d read that sort of stuff goes all the way back to using light bulbs along the wing leading edges of ASW planes in WW2 so the U Boats had less time to dive.
          I believe there is a White world and a Black world, and the Black is quite a few years ahead of the White.

          • I’m certain they are. UK universities are one of the worlds R&D powerhouses.

            The old polyversities used to do a fair amount of excellent MoD work too.

            You’d be surprised what has military applications.

          • What do think Universities are for? It is literally where most of this is developed and where a massive chunk of the R&D budget is spent. They are research institutions. The undergraduate bit is the side hustle that ensures a supply of new talent, but pretty much every bit of tech, material and idea around you was developed originally in a university, particularly the theoretical stuff that underpins it all. You can’t be a serious country and particularly a serious defence country without universities.

          • The myth of the plucky bloke tinkering in a shed or the underdog British company designing and making world beating tech is very seductive but it is just that, utter myth. Companies pay and work with universities to research and the MoD pays a lot of money for unis to develop new stuff, literally what they are there for.

        • Thousands of C.C.P. STEM students in Blighty’s universities will not get placement opportunities due to failing the security requirements to be UK born and so UK nationals.

    • Mysis was launched in 2013, but the general DIRCM tech has been around since the 1990’s. It’s not particularly secret. If we on the outside didn’t know about it, it’s probably because we can’t pay attention to everything. There’s just too much to know.

      I suggest theaviationist.com /2021/10/25/miysis-dircm

      as a good source with background, including the progress up to 2021 on the project to deploy it on the Shadows. It doesn’t mention A400M so that’s probably new.

    • This type and development of countermeasures has been around for at least 15 years. The Leonardo Mysis is an evolution of what’s gone before and they’ve had a number of iterations to get it to where it is today.

      If you look at images of the RAF’s late BAe146 and C130s that flew into Iraq and Afghan, you will see near the tails of the aircraft directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM). This was an evolution of the fixed direction IR jammers, such as those fitted to the Sea Kings and Chinook.

      These jammers used a huge xenon style bulb to generate light that then was filtered to only allow IR light through. This light was “directed” rearwards to generate a false target to a missile’s IR seeker. Unlike flares the false targets travel at the same speed as the aircraft. These targets were placed to be away from the aircraft, so the missile would steer away from the aircraft. This is the basic premise of the system, it did use some other tricks to steer away the missile.

      The problem with these jammers is that if the missile’s proximity fuse detonates the warhead. The aircraft could still be in range of being hit by the expanding shrapnel cloud. Plus the newer missiles using imaging infrared (IIR) seekers no longer hunt for hot spots, but search for a target’s IR pattern. Therefore it can ignore these types of jammer.

      The next iteration of IR jammer is DIRCM, as seen on our late C130s. This still used an IR filtered white light bulb, but through optical lenses focused the light into a beam. That when packaged in a 2D turret allowed the beam to be directed at the missile. The light wasn’t concentrated or powerful enough to blind the seeker. But did allow the beam to steer the missile further away from the aircraft. Again modern IIR seekers can ignore the beam, as it doesn’t match the pattern it’s searching for.

      This led to laser infrared countermeasures (LIRCM). Instead of a white light bulb generating the light, an IR laser is used. The beam of the laser is significantly smaller in diameter than DIRCM’s. Even though the energy is more concentrated, the laser is not powerful enough to burn out the missile’s seeker or turn its glass window opaque. Instead it saturates the seeker, thus blinding it.

      The DIRCM/LIRCM can be directed towards the missile, by either active radar or passive IR. There is a preference to using passive systems for missile detection and tracking. As an active radar can be detected and used as a beacon for a missile to home in on.

      • How could the light steer the missile away from the aircraft?
        Surely the missile would still see the spot as being in the same direction, unless it were towed? As far as I know you can’t trick a seeker into seeing something other than where the source is, or even “bend” the light after it is emitted.
        Could this sort of thing be developed to counter radar guided missiles? For example, could you use a miniaturised example of the new microwave DEW tuned to common missile guidance wavelengths to white out the picture in the terminal phase?

    • This is a DIRCM….a new one

      We already have aircraft equipped with it, and have done for years, over 15 years in fact along with US and Canada. UK and US make systems, Turkey now do, China and Russia (the Russian President S system has seen some use in Ukraine).

      Before that we used IRCM.

      I believe the one referred to is the Leonardo UK Miysis system which is actually already in operational use.

      • Jim Basic Physics infra red detection works on the detection of a heat source. A big claggy, cold wet cloud pretty well takes care of that and the IR sensor loses its lock.
        Same applies to Naval warships a ship produces large amounts of heat, which is why a lot of effort goes into cooling the IR signature down. It’s why the German K135 Class don’t have a conventional funnel, but the exhaust is right down near the waterline.

        • Yes but if there is a big claggy cold wet cloud in the middle the infrared seeker on the missile will also have trouble locking on to the aircraft.

          It splits two ways. IR is not as affected as visible light by bad weather.

  6. Slightly confused here. “Miysis DIRCM has again proven itself as a reliable, effective protection system and is flying operationally on many platforms today.” now this suggests the laser system at least is already in use on aircraft so how does that work without the detection system or is it working with a different one? Elix-IR is also stated by Thales to be operating widely on aircraft. So that being the case, is the point in the article the fact the combination of the two is new and thus gives a new level of defensive performance? Or is it fundamentally an upgrade of the combined system with greatly improved performance?

      • Is this technology linked in anyway to the Dragonfire and ground, vehice, and ship based systems? It sounds like it’d be very effective against missiles and drones in a shorad configuration?

        • This is dazzle tech and works alongside flares as a countermeasure. It doesn’t shoot missiles down like Dragonfire as much as confuse their infrared sensors so they get lost. It’s probably only effective against active IR seekers, so certain classes of air-to-air missiles and MANPADS. I works at about the order of 1kW. For comparison, Dragonfire works at about 50kW and I think the full power on Raytheon’s laser system on the Wolfhounds is 15kW.

          It’s possible Dragonfire also has a dazzle mode, but I haven’t heard of it.

          • Probably not that effective then as most missiles these days are multi mode. Good against manpads and the like though, so probably great for things like the a400m if it needs to combat land.

          • Most AAMs or SAMs don’t seem to have multi-mode seekers yet, so this ought to have a decent effectiveness.
            I agree that its main purpose would seem to be protecting Atlas, Shadow and other manned planes that operate in conflict areas from MANPADS when at low altitude.

          • Even if it’s multi mode the defence system will be jamming radar and pumping out chaff and flairs at the same time but as you say air to air and surface to air weapons are not multi mode because they need to be light weight.

          • MANPADS don’t, generally, have multimode as they are MAN Portable…rather than platform mounted.

            Comes down to weigh range tradeoffs.

            It will be coming as seeker tech gets smaller, lighter and less power hungry.

          • Almost no surface to air missiles or air launched are multi mode. Yiu thinking about ground attack. None of ours are multi mode.

          • I may be wrong on the active point. I just asked myself how can the laser home in on the missile sensors if they are not active? I’m no expert and simply may not have thought it through. Later, when I have more time, I may read up on Thales Elix-IR (the sensor that cues DIRCM in the current tests) to see if it can do anything clever in that area.

          • Becuse the missile gives off a massive IR signature from its rocket exhaust. No such thing as an active infra red seeker. LIDAR is as close as you would get to something like that and no missile uses LIDAR.

          • if i had to make a wild guess I’d go with either detecting the heat of the rocket or on the missile body, or perhaps the sensor itself being particularly IR absorbant

          • “Elix-IR® detects the IR signature generated by both the launch and the flight of the incoming projectile to provide the crew with timely and accurate identification, tracking and fire post geolocation.”
            Seems to suggest it’s from the rocket exhaust. Which raises the question on how good it is at tracking missiles after the burn.

          • To give a top level answer to both your’s and Jim’s reply below, about how DIRCM/LIRCM is directed at the missile threat? This is generally done through information received from another sensor system. This can be active radar, or via IR or UV based optical sensors. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

            Active radar will give you the 3D position of the missile as well as the true closure velocity. Whilst both IR and UV requires a bit more help and complexity. On aircraft, the systems that detect and track missile threats are called missile approach warning systems (MAWS). All the RAF/FAA and AAC (minus training aircraft) have at least one MAWS. The majority using an IR based system, especially helicopters.

            I won’t go into how the radar system works, as that’s pretty obvious. But how does a passive optical system do it? It requires three key things. A very accurate clock, knowing where the platform is in space relative to the ground via integrated inertial navigation system and GPS, and high pixel count optical sensors. When all three are working together, you can work out if the detected missile is approaching your platform. Then work out its closure rate which flags it up as a valid threat or not.

            Normally for a valid threat you would bang off expendable countermeasures, such as chaff and flares. However, as you’ve worked out where the threat is and its predicted path in relation to your position. You can now aim the DIRCM/LIRCM turret at it. The system will monitor the missile if it diverges off track or not. If it doesn’t, it can do a few more tricks to further confuse the seeker.

      • If you are right in that second point, I wonder who else already uses it, be it this or a previous version of the technology. Certainly plenty in it that likes to give the impression that this is a new product or capability by use of careful (or otherwise simply lazy) language without as you say being clear when you analyse it carefully, whether it is just new to the RAF. Your first point shows you aren’t clear on that issue either. Either way it would be nice to know clearly which it is, so as to be better informed on the technology generally, as I wasn’t the only one who felt it was somewhat nebulous in that regard at best. If it already exists in some form, then as Sailorboy said, it’s odd we haven’t heard more substance about it before. Anyway beyond the technical details, excellent to hear it’s being utilised. Wonder what its future potential is, my mind wanders towards Tempest of course.

  7. Very interesting bit of kit and I dare say it can be fitted to the Voyagers and C17 as well, it’s certainly a step up from flares and decoys. The only thing I don’t like is the title of the article, which I’m surprised at because a lot of UKDJ article’s get picked up by the tabloids much to their credit.
    Shouldn’t it be New or Newest not News ? And I’d have described it’s an Aircraft Air Self Defence system rather than Air Defence.

    • I agree mate, Though I initially read the article as meaning our planes had a self defence laser that shoots down incoming, like Dragonfire, not a dazzler type as Jon has now explained.

      • Now that would be fun, wouldn’t it? Plane CIWS? Count me in, but I am sure that sort of thing is under development for GCAP.
        You wouldn’t even have to do that much damage as the vital seeker and electronics are all in the nose.

      • A dazzled missile is as good as a hard kill, isn’t it. Any missile, once unguided, is just a dart following some kind of parabola to the deck.

  9. A confusingly written article.

    This isn’t a laser that will be destroying missiles and neither defeats radar guided missiles, this is to confuse IR seeking missiles.

    • It betters the use if flares though surely. Use of flares must be a huge unwanted beacon in theatre. With Bright Cloud able to defend against radar guided threats, countermeasure suites have become almost fully effective with this news.

      I wonder if it is powerful enough to cook drone cameras?

  10. Sounds remarkably good. Other applications? Can it be utilised on ships, smaller craft like LCUs/ LCVPs or other riverine type craft?
    Has it also got another application for vehicles?

  11. This is interesting, it does tie in with a paper I read that small single seat fighters are coming to the end of their usefulness with a number of developments. Essentially BVR, off bore sight shooting, drones, lasers and networking all mean that where as once agility, speed and energy management was the key to winning, in the future it will be the number of resources in :human brains, computing power, sensors, power-output, munitions and drones and that in the future it would be the large very aware aircraft with lots of resources that would win the fight..not a small single seat fighter with limited resources…

    • We get these papers every 10 years or so. Every time they are proven wrong. As the technology to take out the plane is countered by something else. Having the pilot operate the drone remotely is all well and good, until either the satellite is taken out or the relayed signal is jammed. We won’t be fully autonomous for a long time, as we still need a human in the loop to kill another human. The legal ramifications of removing the human are huge and way beyond my pay scale.

      I do agree that the biggest issue at the moment is the relatively low weapons load of stealthy aircraft. There are two ways of fixing this. Make the aircraft bigger with a correspondingly bigger weapons bay. Or farm out additionally required weapons to loyal wingman drones that are kept within line of sight of the mothership.

      BVR combat is a good place for a discussion. There is a train of thought that he who fires first wins the engagement. Which is partially true. A lot depends on how much energy the missile has in the terminal phase. Which is why a lot of pilots will launch when the target is within 80% of the missile’s max range. As that means it has more energy to play with and lowers the targets ability to counter it. If the target aircraft gets closer, then the missile has more energy still, giving a better chance of interception.

      Another train of thought is that if you activate your search radar. Somebody else can detect it. Using it as a beacon for your BVR missiles to home in on. Hence why the F35 places such a huge point on its passive capability.

      Since we have had the capability of firing a BVR missile at another aircraft. The normal response to a missile fired at you was to fire your missile back along the path that the missile came from. This worked well when missiles were semi-active radar homing. As the launching aircraft had to keep you in view of its radar, for the missile to home in on.

      This is still relatively true for active radar homing missiles as well. As the launch distances are now so much greater. The launch aircraft has to illuminate the target to give a mid-course update. Which gives the targeted aircraft an idea that a missile is on its way. Which means at the extreme ranges you may have to do a number of mid-course updates. Especially if you don’t have AEW/ground based radar giving you situational awareness.

      BVR combat is not clear cut. There are lots of factors that could make a successful stealthy launch turn sour really quickly. As always the other guy gets a vote and invariably does something unexpected.

  13. Would love to see this adapted for the conformal tank locations on the Eurofighter. One each side. Broadly speaking, that would complete an invincible CM suite.

    • And where would the energy to power the laser be generated on a small aircraft?
      Small aircraft struggle as it is to power the avionics and radar.

      • These are not powerful lasers….Miysis can be used on any aircraft. It doesn’t destroy the target, just blinds the sensors.

        It’s already deployed….we’ve been using DIRCM for over 15 years now…

  14. Question from ignorance, but can’t a laser be reflected and therefore the next generation or missiles will have reflective surfaces? Just asking….

    • It’s newsworthy in UKDJ because it’s a British-built system currently being tested for the RAF, as opposed to Australian or Israeli systems. [Or if you prefer, it’s because George, who is writing the article for free, says it is.]

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