Navy League 2025: BlueHalo brings Locust laser to navy customers

A model of BlueHalo's palletised Locust laser weapon system at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space exhibition in April 2025. (BlueHalo)

BlueHalo displayed a mock-up of its Locust laser weapon system at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space exhibition in National Harbor, Maryland, held from 7 to 9 April. “Locust is a 20 kW class, 15 cm aperture system … designed for counter-UAS [unmanned aircraft system]” missions, Aaron Westman, senior director for BlueHalo Labs Strategic Initiatives, told Janes on 8 April during the exhibition. “It works really well,” he continued, adding that “we believe over the last three years of operation of the Locust system … between test events and operational deployments, we've killed hundreds of drones, maybe even a thousand”.

The benefit of a laser system such as Locust is that “you don't run out of bullets. The only magazine is the juice in the battery. As long as there's juice in the batteries, you can keep firing”, Westman said. This is becoming more important given the growing number of drones on the battlefield and the high cost per shot of other hard-kill counter-UASs (C-UASs).

“I think customers and users are coming to realise that you need something that has a cheap cost of engagement to be able to have an effect in this robotic warfare game we're getting into,” he said.

C-UAS focus