CSA Engineering is currently under contract to the Boeing Corporation to provide engineering services in vibro-acoustic suppression and jitter mitigation for the Airborne Laser (ABL) program. ABL is an advanced airborne weapon system that seeks to deliver lethal levels of light to boosting theatre ballistic missiles. The use of directed energy systems requires precision both in tracking the target and pointing the weapon at the target. This precision must be maintained over sustained periods of time as the effect of the weapon is thermal - the energy beam must be deposited over a fixed region of the target long enough to deposit the amount of energy necessary to destabilize the target.

Historically, the greatest challenge to maintaining the required precision is controlling the inertial motion of the optics that direct the beam. Mechanical motion of the steering and shaping optics induces jitter - the dynamic deviation of the beam from an inertially stable trajectory through space. The airborne laser program seeks to place a precision optical system on a flexible, airborne platform. Every piece of equipment sees a different environment.

CSA Engineering is a critical part in the effort to control the airborne environment with a highly complex system of mitigations. These mitigations include passive damping, vibration isolation and acoustic baffling. In addition to these passive mitigation technologies, CSA is assisting in the development of sophisticated state of the art opto-mechanical control systems for actively suppressing optical jitter.