The Australian Department of Defense is attempting to develop high powered lasers that can penetrate armored tanks, for instance.

QinertiQ Australia, a high-energy laser research and development company, has been commissioned to create the lasers by the Australian Department of Defense.

According to the Australian Department of Defense, the currently available range of high energy laser weapons is sufficient to down certain drones, but not larger armored vehicles like tanks.

As such, the future program for developing a directed energy weapon system that can be incorporated onto the Australian Defense Forces protected and armored vehicles and that is capable of defeating armored vehicles, including main battle tanks, is currently underway.

“One problem [laser weapons face] is the power needed to destroy useful targets such as missiles. To destroy something of this size requires lasers with hundreds of kilowatts or even megawatts of power. And these devices are only around 20% efficient, so we would require five times as much power to run the device itself,” the researchers explained.

“We are well into megawatt territory here — the kind of power consumed by a small town. For this reason, even portable directed energy devices are very large. (It’s only recently that the U.S. has been able to make a relatively small 50 kW laser compact enough to fit on an armored vehicle, although devices operating at powers up to 300 kW have been developed),” the researchers added.

The $12.9 million contract awarded to QinetiQ Australia will see the co-development and manufacture of a high energy defensive laser system prototype capable of being deployed in assorted operational environments.