Preface

This Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS)-sponsored book effort started out with a focus on radio frequency/microwave directed energy weapons (DEWs). In fact, the author’s original working title for the book was Unconventional Electronic Attack (UEA): High Power Radio Frequency/Microwave Directed Energy Weapons. It was quickly realized, however, that this emphasis on DEW systems would only limit DEPS’s ability to provide the author’s unique understanding of high-power radio frequency/high-power microwave (HPRF/HPM) DE systems to the broader non-DoD (Department of Defense) audience. DEPS was founded to foster the research, development, and operational transition of DE technologies for both national defense and civil applications through professional communication, education, and outreach. Thus, a less defense-focused title and a fuller spectrum range of applications were developed for the book.

The present title, Radio Frequency Directed Energy Systems and Their Effects, and broader scope of the book permit the author’s knowledge of high-powered microwave energy to be more readily utilized for other radio frequency/microwave (RF/M) DE systems applications such as power beaming, improved radar, and other RF systems for remote sensing of the Earth’s environment and beyond. Optimized antenna array concepts, high-power beam-steering techniques, and distributed beam-forming approaches developed for HPM DEW systems can and should be exploited in civilian industry to further capitalize on DoD research and development.

In summary, this book speaks more broadly to RF/M propagation and target interaction than just DE weapons. To that end, the text is careful to generally specify the systems addressed as “RF/M DE systems” rather than as HPM DEW systems. The acronym HPM as a specific form of RF/M DE system is frequently noted herein, but the term “weapon system” is understandably avoided.