Aurelius Systems, the autonomous laser defense company behind the Archimedes counter-UAS system, today announced Aurelius Manufacturing, a new division that will build high-power fiber laser source modules in the United States. The U.S. defense laser supply chain has a gap. Demand for high-power fiber lasers is growing across military and industrial applications. A small number of established domestic manufacturers produce laser sources, but the market is shifting. Chinese laser companies have taken majority share in Asia Pacific, a region that accounts for nearly half the global fiber laser market, and are expanding into the U.S. through new automation products and service networks. For defense programs that need ITAR-compliant components from a supplier they can trace end to end, the pool of qualified domestic options is small and getting smaller relative to demand. Aurelius set out to build Archimedes, its autonomous counter-UAS system, to give American forces scalable defense against drone threats. In doing so, the team found that domestic production of high-power fiber lasers has been shrinking for over a decade, with most remaining suppliers no longer American-owned. Aurelius Manufacturing is the company’s response: a U.S. production line for the same fiber laser source modules and components that sit at the heart of any directed-energy system, and that American manufacturers have had to import for years.

“It’s clear the domestic production of high-power lasers in the US is significantly lower than necessary to support both our directed energy and defense needs. Laser system production has been continually offshored outside of our lands. In order to support our customers, the directed energy industry at large and the growing material processing industry in the US, we’ll be vertically integrating and producing lasers here in the homeland,” said Michael Laframboise, CEO of Aurelius Systems.

Full exclusive: Aurelius Systems aims to be America’s one-stop High-Power Fiber Lasers shop.

For more see the OODA Company Profile on Aurelius Systems.