LOCUST Laser Weapon System

LOCUST originated from a 2023 US Navy Naval Surface Warfare Center contract to BlueHalo, since merged into AeroVironment, to build a directed-energy prototype for the Marine Corps' Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. It combines a gimbaled electro-optical tracking system, a plug-and-play RF cueing interface that accepts external radar and RF sensor tracks, and a hard-kill high-energy laser effector, all driven through an operator interface built around a common gaming controller. It is built on a Modular Open Systems Approach architecture so that laser power level, battery capacity, external sensor integration and thermal management can be tailored per platform. AeroVironment delivered the first two JLTV-mounted LOCUST units to the US Army on 18 December 2025 under the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) prototyping effort, and the system has been live-fire tested aboard the carrier USS George H.W. Bush, successfully engaging multiple UAV targets. Two points of caution belong on the record. First, this system must not be confused with the unrelated US Office of Naval Research programme of the same acronym, LOCUST for Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology, which was a drone-swarming effort rather than a laser. Second, no laser power rating is recorded here as data. The 20 to 35-plus kW figure that circulates for LOCUST is officially published by AeroVironment for the third-generation LOCUST X3 variant specifically, and attributing it to the baseline system would overstate what the manufacturer has actually confirmed; AeroVironment describes the base system's power as a configurable parameter rather than a fixed published rating. No engagement range, weight or crew figures are published either, and directed-energy range figures in particular attract speculative numbers, so they are omitted rather than estimated. Sibling products documented separately include LOCUST TATS, a standalone EO/IR and RF target acquisition and tracking subsystem with no integral laser, and LOCUST X3, the third-generation variant.