This thesis describes the development and use of a laser built to optimise the guiding of an electrical discharge through air. Most of the research is done filamentation from Ti:Sa laser as they easily deliver high peak power and energy but the lack the possibility for high average power and energy efficiency. To address these requirements for large scale operation, we focus the development on Yb-based crystals. We thus demonstrate a regenerative amplifier able to produce 30 mJ pulses at 100 Hz repetition rate and a pulse duration of 400 fs. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest energy in femtosecond regime from an Yb:CaF2 crystal at high repetition rate and room temperature. A multipass amplifier using an Yb:YAG crystal increases the energy up to 65 mJ and is designed to reach 150 mJ. We add a pulse splitter to create a train of pulses without energy losses and investigate, numerically and experimentally, the conductivity lifetime of the filament-induced plasma