Developments and Trends of Directed Energy Technology in the United States

Cyber-electromagnetic space has become another new area of operations after land, sea, air, and apace. As one of the cyber-electromagnetic offensive weapons, directed energy (DE) weapon has always been a hot topic in the frontier of national defense science and technology. DE is a focused beam of electromagnetic energy that is used to enable or create military effects, when used in conjunction with other military systems. With the development of science and technology, the increasing demand for offensive and defensive operations across the battle space, and the role of information in maintaining military parity across the battle space the military significance of DE is increasing day by day. Starting from the introduction of the characteristics of DE, this paper discusses the research and trend of directed energy weapon and put forward the enlightenment of the development.