Wednesday, February 21, 2007

New Robo-Weapon: Paralyzing Floodlight

The US Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate plans to demonstrate the use of a 7.5 million candlepower strobe floodlight system mounted on board an unmanned air vehicle as a non-lethal crowd-control system.

The project will see a Peak Beam Systems searchlight adapted to operate as a strobe capable of inducing physical effects, such as short-term paralysis, in humans.

The system uses a xenon-based searchlight that "can be pulsed with a unique modulation [strobe] effect that results in immobilisation to those within the beam.

But that's not the only flying robot / ray gun combo the U.S. military is examining. The Air Force is also toying with the idea of mounting its Active Denial System pain weapon on a drone, too. Just so the robots can make us feel like we're on fire, before they temporarily blind us.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

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