directed energy weapons on humansdirected energy weapons on humans
How 'Revolutionary' Is CHAMP, New Air Force Microwave Weapon? [56] Their weapons capability has been controversially used in the USA to disrupt numerous protests. A14.5 kHz E V2K 28-Dec-8927-Oct-92Oliver M. LoweryOliver M. LoweryPresents subliminal auditory information to the human via remotely applied waves US 5356368 A4-212 Hz MK 1-Mar-9118-Oct-94Robert A. MonroeInterstate Industries Inc. (dba Monroe Products)Method of and apparatus for inducing . However, a stronger counterargument is that directed-energy weapons, especially lasers, are more humane than conventional weapons because they can strike pinpoint targets, thus causing less collateral damage. For example, in 2005 the cruise liner Seabourn Spirit used a sonic weapon to defend itself from Somali pirates in the Indian ocean. It stated that it did have, however, an 'ultra-loud public address system which [] could be "used for verbal communication over two miles, or put out a sustained or modulated sound blanket to make conversation, and thus crowd organisation, impossible. Researchers with AFRL use the Guidestar laser for real-time, high-fidelity tracking and imaging of satellites too faint for conventional adaptive optical imaging systems. While DEWs are not the solution to all combat situations, these technologies would provide the U.S. military with additional flexibility in tailoring its response to different types of threats. Development of the THEL began in 1996 as a joint program between the United States and Israel to develop a laser system capable of shooting down Katyusha rockets, artillery, and mortar shells. The MDT is a fixed grid of passive infrared (IR) cameras. But let us broaden these applications somewhat. The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the. Laser weapons potentially eliminate many logistical problems in terms of ammunition supply, as long as there is enough energy to power them. Among the directed-energy weapons the Nazis investigated were X-ray beam weapons developed under Heinz Schmellenmeier, Richard Gans and Fritz Houtermans. A laser weapon could target not only a single vehicle in a convoy, but also a specific spot on that vehicle (e.g., the engine) and disable it without injuring the passengers. U.S. Air Force The U.S. military has developed a directed energy technology. speed of light engagement which makes responsiveness and tracking much faster than kinetic weapons; deep shot magazines which are only limited by the electrical power supplied to and re-generated by the system; stealth-like performance (quiet and invisible beams) that are hard to detect or intercept; precision targeting for both lethal and non-lethal applications; and. Microwave electromagnetic weapons can also stun a victim. 79, No. The sensation increases in intensity until the affected individual moves out of the beam or it is shut off. In this last factor, the frequency of the laser and the engagement altitude will have a significant impact on how much the atmosphere effects the lasers lethality. A high-voltage electrical charge is then fed into one of the laser beams, striking the target. U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, "High-Power Microwaves," fact sheet, September 2002, at, Dr. Stephen Adams, "Electrical Power and Thermal Management for Airborne Directed Energy Weapons," U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, September 2001, at, Carlo Kopp, "The Electromagnetic Bomb-A Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction," at, GlobalSecurity.org, "High Power Microwave (HPM)/E-Bomb," at, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, "Active Denial System," fact sheet, September 2005, at, Press release, "Northrop Grumman Surpasses Power, Run-Time Requirements of Joint High Power Solid-State Laser Program for Military Use," Northrop Grumman Corporation, November 9, 2005, at, China North Industries Corporation, "ZM-87 Portable Laser Disturber Fact Sheet," quoted in Human Rights Watch, "Blinding Laser Weapons: The Need to Ban a Cruel and Inhumane Weapon," September 1995, at, "Electromagnetic Weapons: Come Fry with Me,", David Ruppe, "Directed-Energy Weapons: Possible U.S. Use Against Iraq Could Threaten International Regimes," Global Security Newswire, Russias New START Breach Means U.S. Nuclear Weapons Modernization Is a Must, North Koreas Growing ICBM Threat: How America and South Korea Should Respond, China Surpasses U.S. in Nuclear Missile Launchers; U.S. Unprepared to Deter Growing Threat. The Air Force Research Lab's Propulsion Directorate has studied using generators that use high-temperature superconducting wire and high-voltage capacitors. Weapons designed to cause undue suffering are banned under the Geneva Convention, and human rights groups argue that directed-energy weapons raise a host of new legal and moral concerns that do not apply to previous generations of conventional weapons. Are these weapons still science fiction, lab experiments, or are they real? A DE weapon is a system using DE primarily as a direct means to The MARAUDER (Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed-Energy and Radiation) used the Shiva Star project (a high energy capacitor bank which provided the means to test weapons and other devices requiring brief and extremely large amounts of energy) to accelerate a toroid of plasma at a significant percentage of the speed of light. "Mobile/Tactical High Energy Laser (M-THEL) Technology Demonstration Program,", Richard M. Roberds, Ph.D., "Introducing the Particle-Beam Weapon,", GlobalSecurity.org, "Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3)," at, Bill Gertz, "N. Korea Fired Laser at Troops,", "Mobile/Tactical High Energy Laser (M-THEL) Technology Demonstration Program. [83] A few years later, the cruise liner Spirit of Adventure also defended itself from Somali pirates by using its LRAD to force them to retreat. [63], During the early 1940s Axis engineers developed a sonic cannon that could cause fatal vibrations in its target body. This information is then transferred to an optical tracking system, which refines the target tracking and positions the beam director. The ABL is a system that uses a megawatt chemical laser mounted on a modified Boeing 747 to shoot down theater ballistic missiles. So how close are they to becoming weaponized? Authors: [19]GlobalSecurity.org, "High Power Microwave (HPM)/E-Bomb," at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/hpm.htm (March 15, 2006). We proved that the technology could be effective, but its size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements made the laser weapons impracticable to field. The THEL system uses radar to detect and track incoming targets. Like lasers, HPM weapons can operate in a pulsed or continuous manner and are classified using peak or average power respectively. A prototype ADS system mounted on a Humvee went into testing in August 2005. There is no injury to the target individual. A composite image of a satellite firing an energy weapon at a target on Earth. Funding has been cut to both of the programs. Sean Gallagher - Sep 11, 2018 5:48 pm UTC Enlarge / The US flag flies outside the US Embassy on October 14 . The virtual inaudibility of the equipment is said to produce a "spooky" psychological effect. They hurt and kill with electromagnetic power. 3. [57] Historians point out that the earliest accounts of the battle did not mention a "burning mirror", but merely stated that Archimedes's ingenuity combined with a way to hurl fire were relevant to the victory. During the Iraq War, electromagnetic weapons, including high power microwaves, were used by the U.S. military to disrupt and destroy Iraqi electronic systems and may have been used for crowd control. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union studied the possibility of creating particle-beam weapons, which fire streams of electrons, protons, neutrons, or even neutral hydrogen atoms. [8], In August 2004, the THEL system shot down multiple mortar rounds during testing. Adversaries are not waiting to develop directed energy weapons. Like lasers, particle beams travel at the speed of light, but unlike lasers, the particles in a particle beam have mass, giving the beam tremendous kinetic energy. However, no military has yet openly deployed HPM weapons. Because the laser energy travels at the speed of light, lasers are particularly well-suited for use against moving targets such as rockets, missiles, and artillery projectiles. What if the United States could deploy effective anti-missile lasers on its aircraft to defeat any missile(s) fired at them? The humanitarian community is also concerned about the long-term biological effects of DEWs (microwaves in particular) and their possible use against civilian targets.[25]. At some point in the future, entire military units may be armed with only DEWs. The word laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. [4] Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. This type of weapon shows great potential as a riot-control device or area-denial system. Electrolasers make use of laser bloom, a normally undesired effect. A methane gas combustion chamber leading to two parabolic dishes pulse-detonated at roughly 44 Hz. - The Navy continues to learn more about a pair of directed energy weapons, as the service installs the fourth and fifth dazzler system this year and begins land-based testing of . Space-based high energy lasers could be brought to bear especially in the boost/ascent phase of boost glide hypersonic missiles where a high-energy laser could destroy the vehicle early in its trajectory. The Defense Department needs to establish clear guidelines for using the technology. Vection and motion sickness can also occur. In an electrolaser, twin laser beams create an ionized channel inside the atmosphere, which conducts electricity. At higher energy levels, the microwaves can permanently "burn out" equipment, much as a close lightning strike could. First up is the Multi-Mission High Energy Laser, a 50-killowatt retrofit to a modified Stryker vehicle, which is expected to be operational in 2023. The EPFCG uses chemical explosives to compress an electrically charged coil. This makes targeting and tracking easier as well. In recent years the U.S. Navy deployed a 30kW class solid state laser weapon system (LaWS) prototype on the Afloat Forward Staging Base, USS Ponce. A prototype ADS system mounted on a Humvee went into testing in August 2005.[22]. However, the wide variety of missions, platforms, and implementation environments necessitates continued service-differentiated development activities. [79][80] At the time, the Soviet Union was concerned that the shuttle was being used as a reconnaissance platform. The idea of damage is to inflict moderate injury on enemy communications facilities, weapons systems, and subsystems hardware, and to do so in order to incapacitate the enemy for a certain time. [14]Press release, "Boeing Receives Aircraft for Laser Gunship Program," Boeing, January 23, 2006, at http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q1/060123a_nr.html (March 15, 2006). The deuterium fluoride chemical laser fires, hitting the rocket or shell and causing it to explode far short of its intended target. "Mobile/Tactical High Energy Laser (M-THEL) Technology Demonstration Program," Defense Update, at http://www.defense-update.com/directory/THEL.htm (March 10, 2006). The release noted the HPM and HEL systems engaged and defeated dozens of unmanned aerial system targets during the exercise, The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator, or HEL MD, is the result of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command research. This laser would be megawatt class and have a range of hundreds of miles. However, the first working laser was not built until 1960, opening an entirely new avenue of directed-energy research. The distinction between them is the wavelength/frequency of the energy. At 200 yards away, body temperature increases from the normal 98.6 F to 107 F. At closer range, the temperature increase can be even higher, and is lethal. For example, a recent test of a solid-state laser by Northrop Grumman produced a continuous 27-kilowatt beam that lasted just under six minutes.[23]. How can they be used and how disruptive can they be? These systems of missile defense are expected to come online no sooner than the mid to late-2020s. Laser dazzlers-devices that use laser light to temporarily blind sensors, optics, and personnel- are already available for law enforcement and military use. [37] Some examples of weapons which have been publicized by the military are as follows: Active Denial System is a millimeter wave source that heats the water in a human target's skin and thus causes incapacitating pain. Research was also conducted on a mobile version of the THEL called the MTEL. The THEL system uses radar to detect and track incoming targets. The kinetic energy imparted by a particle stream destroys the target by heating the target's atoms to the point that the material literally explodes. However, Boeing has been somewhat successful with the Boeing YAL-1 and Boeing NC-135, the first of which destroyed two missiles in February 2010. Space-based lasers would have a profound impact on the U.S. ability to defend and if necessary, fight in space. In addition, a laser shot (including the cost of producing the energy) is much cheaper than a shot from a chemical-powered weapon system. Even the most conservative market projections for directed energy weapons indicate nearly $30 billion being spent by the United States during the next ten years. (Invented by Max Steenbeck at Siemens-Schuckert in the 1930s, these were later called Betatrons by the Americans.) Fort Lesley J. McNair The release noted the HPM and HEL systems engaged and defeated dozens of unmanned aerial system targets during the exercise.14. The United States will soon be reaching the point where it can generate a megawatt of power in a size, weight, and volume capable of being put on a high-altitude aircraft or space-based platform. Moreover, cheap countermeasures can be applied to existing missiles. These high-speed missiles fly at Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and greater. The number of "shots" a laser weapon can produce is limited only by its power supply. Some attempts to replicate this feat have had some success; in particular, an experiment by students at MIT showed that a mirror-based weapon was at least possible, if not necessarily practical. When they return to their normal or ground state, the electrons emit photons (particles of light). In most cases, the target system must be shut off and restarted, and may require minor repairs before it can operate normally again. Russia has reportedly been using blinding laser weapons during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While directed-energy technology is not the panacea for all situations that its most ardent advocates claim, it can give the U.S. military flexibility in tailoring its responses (e.g., lethal or nonlethal) to different types of targets (humans or machines). The United States cannot allow itself to fall behind in yet another area of warfighting as has happened in hypersonics. DE weapons include high-energy lasers, high-power radio frequency or microwave devices, and charged or neutral particle beam weapons.2 Microwaves and lasers are both part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes light energy and radio waves. Lung tissue was affected at only the closest ranges as atmospheric air is highly compressible and only the blood rich alveoli resist compression. Such stories were circulating in Britain around 1938 and during the war British Intelligence relaunched the myth as a "British engine-stopping ray," trying to spoof the Germans into researching what the British had supposedly invented in an attempt to tie up German scientific resources. 00:38. Increasing laser power and improving the beam quality can also help to mitigate atmospheric effects in many cases. Electrical blooming occurs only in charged particle beams, as ions of like charge repel one another. 5-1111, Special Report, Phillips Laboratory, March 1996, 76. [25]"Electromagnetic Weapons: Come Fry with Me," The Economist, January 30, 2003, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030130-ebomb01.htm (March 15, 2006). A DE weapon is a system using DE primarily as a direct means to disable, damage or destroy adversary equipment, facilities, and personnel. [81] After the end of the Cold War, the Terra-3 facility was found to be a low-power laser testing site with limited satellite tracking capabilities, which is now abandoned and partially disassembled. They are real and are maturing rapidly. According to DODs Joint Publication 313 Electronic Warfare, directed energy (DE) is described as an: umbrella term covering technologies that produce a beam of concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic particles. to reduce size, weight, and power required to operate these weapons. [54] They range in size from small, portable handheld units which can be strapped to a person's chest, to larger models which require a mount. This technology delivers very high-frequency millimeter-wavelength electromagnetic rays that heat skin on contact, causing a painful burning sensation. The DOD Office of Force Transformation (OFT), in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory, is developing the Tactical Relay Mirror System (TRMS), which would use a mirror system mounted on an aerostat or UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to redirect the beams from laser weapons such as the ATL and ABL. Neither should we. The device combined two slightly different frequencies which when heard would be heard as the sum of the two frequencies (ultrasonic) and the difference between the two frequencies (infrasonic) e.g. What exactly is a directed energy weapon? There is no silver bullet defense against these weapons and in fact there will have to be an architectural approach in defending against them, but directed energy weapons can potentially play a major role. The SOR's world-class adaptive optics telescope is the second largest telescope in the Department of Defense. A possible future development is the electrolaser. Laser beams also lose energy through absorption or scattering if fired through dust, smoke, or rain. [6], Because they were invented several decades ago, lasers are the most mature of the DEW technologies. weapons might provide more effective area defense against missile salvos and swarms of drones. According to a legend, Archimedes created a mirror with an adjustable focal length (or more likely, a series of mirrors focused on a common point) to focus sunlight on ships of the Roman fleet as they invaded Syracuse, setting them on fire. Both the Allies and the Axis powers conducted basic research and studies into primitive directed-energy weapons before World War II. [86], Also, "directed-energy weapons that target the central nervous system and cause neurophysiological disorders may violate the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980. [9], The ABL is a system that uses a megawatt chemical laser mounted on a modified Boeing 747 to shoot down theater ballistic missiles. [74] Some of the victims of this method suffered from suspicious cases of cancer and have claimed that they had also been targeted with directed X-rays. For high energy lasers, lethality depends on the power output of the laser, the purity and concentration of the light (beam quality), the target range, the ability to keep the laser on the target aimpoint (jitter control and tracking), and the atmospheric environment the laser traverses to the target. It was a psychological warfare method which could involve the group based and systematic gaslighting of targets, among other things. The Russian Stupor is reported to have a range of two kilometers, covering a 20-degree sector; it also suppresses the drone's cameras. They seemed to have arisen from the testing of the television transmitter in Feldberg, Germany. And of course, lasers employed at higher altitudes or in space would have very little to no atmospheric affects. In the 1951 science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, powerful ray guns are shown vaporizing rifles and even tanks. For example, the static and distortion that high voltage power lines have on a car radio causes no lasting damage to the radio after the car leaves the area. They were seen as tools for destroying ICBMs and drones, or for dispersing rioters. The full system will be fitted to the aircraft by 2007 and test-fired against ground targets. The Soviet Union invested some effort in the development of ruby and carbon dioxide lasers as anti-ballistic missile systems, and later as a tracking and anti-satellite system. Additional information on How Lasers Work, is available on the Lawrence Livermore National Lab website,