A Chinese company says it has built a portable laser drone defense system that weighs 25 kilograms, can hit low-flying targets within 500 meters, and can disable a drone’s key power and control components in 4 seconds. The pitch is simple: make short-range anti-drone defense lighter, faster, and much cheaper than firing missiles at every nuisance quadcopter.
Harbin Xinguang Optoelectronics is marketing the Lijian series as a soldier-carried system, but the more interesting detail is how much autonomy it packs in. The company says the setup can identify targets on its own using built-in AI and can also take external radar cues to lock on, track, and fire, with only the final confirmation left to the operator. That makes it sound less like a laser ”gun” and more like a node in a wider air-defense network.
25 kg laser drone defense system with a 500-meter reach
The headline specs are the kind defense buyers love to wave around at exhibitions. The unit is compact enough to be described as portable, yet it is aimed at low-altitude threats rather than laboratory demos or static installations.
- Weight: 25 kilograms
- Effective range: 500 meters
- Engagement time: 4 seconds
- Cooling time after firing: less than 5 seconds
If those figures hold up outside a booth demo, the system is designed for rapid repeat engagements. The company says a single unit could theoretically intercept almost 10 low-altitude targets in a minute, which is exactly the sort of math militaries are chasing as cheap drones keep multiplying faster than expensive interceptors can be launched.
Testing and deployment in China
Harbin Xinguang Optoelectronics says the system has already gone through full-scale testing and verification, and that it has been deployed at some military airfields for low-altitude air-defense duties. That is the important signal here: the company is not presenting this as a concept sketch, but as hardware moving into operational use.
The stated price is about 2 million yuan, or $300,000, per set. That is not pocket change, but it is still far below the cost profile of many traditional air-defense responses, especially when the target is a drone that may itself be relatively cheap.
AI guidance and radar-linked interception
The company’s other big claim is autonomy. According to the material shown at the booth, the system can work with external radar detection, automatically identify incoming drones, track them, lock on, and fire, leaving the operator to approve the last step. That is a sensible direction for counter-drone systems, because human reaction time is usually the bottleneck, not the laser beam itself.
It also fits a broader pattern: modern point defense is moving from isolated weapons toward networked sensors and effectors. China is hardly alone there, with other militaries pushing similar layered defenses, but the combination of portability, AI-assisted targeting, and rapid recycle time makes this one easy to market and hard to ignore.
A practical answer to cheap drones
The real contest is not laser versus missile in the abstract. It is whether a lighter system can reliably defeat small drones quickly enough, often enough, and cheaply enough to justify replacing older point-defense habits. If Harbin Xinguang’s numbers survive field use, the next question is obvious: how many airfields, bases, and fixed sites decide they want one before everyone else does?