- Secretary of the U.S. Army Dan Driscoll personally tested the AMP-HEL laser system mounted on an Infantry Squad Vehicle at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
- AeroVironment's 20-kilowatt LOCUST laser fires at approximately $3 per engagement compared to millions of dollars per shot for conventional missile interceptors.
The U.S. Army’s top civilian official sat down at the operator’s seat of a laser-armed pickup truck at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and personally checked the weapon at a drone target, the latest signal from Washington that directed energy weapons have moved from science fiction to serious policy in a very short time.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll visited White Sands Missile Range on May 27 to observe and personally test the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser system, known as AMP-HEL, mounted on a General Motors Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle.
“Today I visited White Sands Missile Range to see firsthand the technologies reshaping modern warfare,” Driscoll posted after the visit. “The scale of their airspace allows the U.S. Army to test UAS and counter-UAS capabilities at scale, making this one of the most important proving grounds in the world.”
The Infantry Squad Vehicle, a 9-seat light tactical vehicle based on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 pickup truck, is the platform the Army has selected as the mobile host for the LOCUST laser weapon system developed by AeroVironment, the California-based company known primarily for its small surveillance drones.
The LOCUST laser, which stands for Laser on Universal Combinable Ultra-light System Technology, produces approximately 20 kilowatts of continuous laser power, a level sufficient to heat the structural materials of a small drone to the point of physical failure within seconds of sustained illumination. AeroVironment delivered the first two ISV-mounted LOCUST systems to the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office in September 2025, followed in December 2025 by two additional systems mounted on the Oshkosh Joint Light Tactical Vehicle with a larger beam director aperture designed to improve engagement effectiveness at longer ranges. Both delivery tranches are part of the AMP-HEL prototyping effort, an accelerated program designed to put mature directed-energy systems into soldiers’ hands faster than the normal acquisition cycle allows.
AeroVironment Senior Vice President Mary Clum of the company’s Space and Directed Energy Group described what the program represents in the company’s 2025 announcement: “This milestone marks a major step forward in the Army’s pursuit of fieldable directed energy capabilities. Through the AMP-HEL programme, AV is delivering our extensively validated LOCUST laser system, a technically sophisticated solution that has demonstrated reliability and operational readiness for the C-UAS fight.”
The case for laser weapons against drones is straightforward once you understand the economics of the problem. A standard short-range air defense missile capable of engaging a drone costs between $50,000 and $400,000 per shot. A drone of the type that Russia has been producing by the tens of thousands using the Iranian Shahed design costs between $20,000 and $50,000. Intercepting a $30,000 drone with a $200,000 missile at a rate of hundreds per week produces a cost imbalance that no defense budget can sustain indefinitely. AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi put the cost argument plainly on 60 Minutes: a Patriot missile battery runs about $1 billion to procure, and each Patriot missile costs around $4 million per shot. AeroVironment’s laser fires at roughly $3 per engagement. The math drives everything else about this program.
The AMP-HEL program sits within a larger Army directed-energy landscape that is moving toward formal production decisions. The Army’s Enduring High Energy Laser program plans to make a production decision in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, with an initial need for 24 systems, and AeroVironment has unveiled the LOCUST X3, an upgraded version of the system designed specifically to counter Shahed-type long-range attack drones, featuring a modular open architecture compatible with multiple vehicle platforms including the JLTV and ISV that are already in the AMP-HEL program.
The operational limitations of laser weapons are real and documented. A laser can only engage one target at a time, which makes swarm tactics a genuine vulnerability. Atmospheric conditions including dust, smoke, humidity, and rain all reduce the effective range and power of the laser’s effect on a target, and Russia has experimented with reflective coatings and dispersants specifically designed to mitigate laser effectiveness.
The Army has consistently stated that directed energy is one tool in a layered counter-drone system rather than a complete solution, which is why AMP-HEL is being fielded alongside radar systems, jamming equipment, kinetic interceptors, and the proximity-fuze-equipped rocket systems also advancing through the Army’s counter-drone pipeline.