Jeffry Scott/Arizona Daily Star 2008

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Tucson company gets U.S. Army contract for laser-guided technology

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Tucson-based Applied Energetics Inc. has been awarded a $4.5 million U.S. Army contract to develop the company's laser-guided-energy technology.

The contract further brings Applied's work from the laboratory to the real world, with a futuristic-like product that is meant to disarm targets on the battlefield.

The laser-guided energy works by sending an electric charge down a guided laser beam, and can disable a vehicle speeding at ground troops, for example.

The one-year contract, announced Monday, was welcome news for the company, as a federal judge earlier this month denied the company's bid to dismiss a shareholder suit filed in July 2007. That suit alleges the company, formerly known as Ionatron Inc., deceived investors by concealing the fact that its vehicle-mounted device to defeat improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, couldn't meet government requirements for successful field testing.

The Pentagon sees promise for the local defense contractor's technology. Its laser-guided energy is "approaching a level of maturity," said Ben Lagasca, chief of the advanced energy armaments division at the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. Now, he said, the Army is working with Applied to bring the technology to full maturity to fulfill the Army's mission needs.

The company's shares were trading at $2.20 about 10 a.m. this morning on the Nasdaq Stock Market, down 10 cents from yesterday's close of $2.30.