New Laser Guns Being Developed for US Police
By David Barrett, PA Home Affairs Correspondent
May 1st, 2005


Two types of laser gun are being developed for use by police officers in the US, it emerged today.

The next generation of police weaponry could include a laser which produces a “plasma flash bang” to stun and disorient crime suspects, New Scientist magazine reported.

Another laser-based prototype is described as a “the first man-portable heat compliance weapon of its kind” by the US agency funding its development.

A third device – a radio-frequency stun weapon – has also secured funding from the research arm of the US Justice Department, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

The magazine obtained what it described as a “limited description” of each new weapon from the NIJ.

One is being developed by Raytheon in California and appears to be based on the military “Active Denial System” or ADS, New Scientist said.

ADS produces an intolerable burning sensation on people’s skin with an invisible 95-gigahertz energy beam, causing them to be repelled without injury, according to the US Air Force.

It has a range of 550yds and is being evaluated as a vehicle-mounted weapon, with the possibility of ship-mounted and airborne versions to follow.

The US military has spent 51 million dollars (£26m) on ADS over the last 11 years, according to the US Air Force website.

A second heat compliance device under development for use by the police uses a semiconductor laser, said New Scientist.

A test system is in development at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico.

“There is no known weapon, military or otherwise, that appears to work in this way,” said the magazine.

“Its effects and effectiveness can only be guessed at.”

The “plasma flash bang” device is believed to be similar to thePulsed Energy Projectileweapon developed for the US Marines.

New Scientist reported the NIJ had commissioned Sterling Photonics of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to develop a portable version for use by the police.

“All three research programmes are due to end in September,” said the magazine.

“But the information provided by the NIJ has so little detail about factors such as wavelengths and power levels that it is impossible to judge how safe the new weapons might be.”

Neil Davison, of the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapon Research Project at the University of Bradford, said ADS was closest to being deployed in the military arena.

There had been some speculation that it could be used in Iraq relatively soon, he said.

But he urged caution over allowing such devices to be used in policing.

“There should be strict oversight of how and when they are used and comprehensive information about what kind of effects they have,” he said.

Police in England and Wales currently use Taser stun guns as a less-lethal alternative to conventional firearms.

They fire needle-tipped darts up to 21ft to deliver a disabling 50,000-volt shock.

All police forces were given the go-ahead to adopt Tasers last year after a 12 month trial in five forces.

However, human rights group Amnesty Internationalhas called for independent tests to be carried out on the use of Tasers worldwide, after compiling a dossier of 103 cases in which people died after being shot with the stun guns.

Police toy with 'less lethal' weapons
30 April 2005
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

DO YOU prefer your police officers to be armed with a gun or a good old-fashioned truncheon or night stick? Or perhaps something in between: say a radio-frequency stun weapon, or a semiconductor laser that can bring down a man from across the street?

Such "less lethal" weapons are closer to reality than many people realise. New Scientist has learned that the research arm of the US justice department, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is funding research into three such devices, all of which are intended to be used by the nation's police forces to bring down suspects and control crowds. In theory they should be less harmful to both their intended targets and bystanders than existing weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets. But such is the secrecy shrouding the new weapons that it is impossible for independent outsiders to judge.

In a statement given to New Scientist, the NIJ has provided a limited description of all three devices. The first is a radio-frequency weapon being developed by Raytheon at Palo Alto, California, which appears to be based on a similar concept to the Active Denial Systemweapon that Raytheon developed for the US marines in 2001. The military version is designed to heat people's skin with a 95-gigahertz microwave beam (New Scientist, 27 October 2001, p 26). With a range of 600 metres, it causes severe pain but, according to Raytheon, no damage. The NIJ has contracted the company to build a prototype suitable for use by police forces. Because it will be portable, it will presumably use less power and work over a shorter range.



The second device is described by the NIJ as "the first man-portable heat compliance weapon of its kind". It uses a semiconductor laser for "force protection, crowd control, and access denial". Though the Air Force ResearchLaboratory in Kirtland, New Mexico, has been contracted to produce a test-bed system, there is no known weapon, military or otherwise, that appears to work this way. Its effects and effectiveness can only be guessed at.

Further clues to the nature of these two devices can be gleaned from a November 2004 report produced by the NIJ's research division. In it, Joe Cecconi of the NIJ described a possible directed-energy prototype weapon as being shotgun-sized, producing an area of intense heat 15 centimetres in diameter at a range of 16 metres, with a magazine capable of delivering 12 shots each of less than a second. The NIJ would not confirm or deny whether this was a description of either the radio-frequency or the heat weapon.

“These less-lethal weapons may not leave any identifiable traces, so allegations of abuse will be hard to prove”A third type of less-lethal weapon commissioned by the NIJ is a laser which produces a "plasma flash bang" at the point of impact, stunning and disorienting the victim. This is similar to the Pulsed Energy Projectile (PEP) system developed for the US marines (New Scientist, 5 March, p 8). The military system uses a chemical laser and weighs around 200 kilograms. The NIJ has commissioned Sterling Photonics of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to produce a "technology platform" for a police version that will be electrically powered and portable.

All three research programmes are due to end in September. But the information provided by the NIJ has so little detail about factors such as wavelengths and power levels that it is impossible to judge how safe the new weapons might be. There is no publicly available information on the effects of the Active Denial System weapon or plasma flash bangs.

As yet there are no non-lethal directed-energy weapons in use by law enforcers. The closest comparable devices are police electric-shock weapons, the best known of which is the Taser. This weapon was introduced in the 1970s, and became popular with police forces in the US during the 1990s. Critics have recently alleged that Tasers have caused the deaths of a number of suspects, and are prone to abuse (see "Taser troubles"), raising concerns that this pattern could be repeated with the new weapons.

Neil Davison of the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project at the University of Bradford, UK, says more information about these weapons needs to be made public. "The non-lethal weapons community is always complaining about bad treatment in the media. But without more transparency about what is being developed, and what the effects on people are, suspicion is bound to be created." He also points out that as these weapons may not leave any identifiable traces, allegations of abuse will be hard to prove.

He also notes there has long been a demand for a capability to turn the power output of these weapons up or down. "Some of these weapons may have a 'lethal' setting," he warns.

Mike McBride, editor of the authoritative Jane's Police and Security Equipment journal, says: "Until these systems have proven to be safer than existing systems - baton rounds, Tasers, tear gas - there is little likelihood of them being deployed operationally."

Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon
19:00 02 March 2005
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.

"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.

One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is entitled "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas".

It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.

Pain trigger
According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells.

The new study, which runs until July and will be carried out with researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.

The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.

Long-term risk
New Scientist contacted two researchers working on the project. Martin Richardson, a laser expert at the University of Central Florida, US, refused to comment. Brian Cooper, an expert in dental pain at the University of Florida, distanced himself from the work, saying "I don't have anything interesting to convey. I was just providing some background for the group." His name appears on a public list of the university's research projects next to the $500,000-plus grant.

John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."

Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. "Persistent pain can result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system," she says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. "They cannot tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a painful experience."

Sweeping stun guns to target crowds
19:00 16 June 2004
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition


Taser success rates by distanceWeapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

But human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

The weapons are designed to address the perceived shortcomings of the Taser, the electric-shock gun already used by 4000 police departments in the US and undergoing trials with some police forces in the UK.

It hits the victim with two darts that trail current-carrying wires, which limit its range to a maximum of seven metres (see graphic). As a single shot, short-range weapon, the Taser is of little use in crowd control. And Tasers have no effect on vehicles.

Ionised gas
These limitations are beginning to be overcome. Engineers working for the US Department of Defense's research division, DARPA, and defence companies in Europe have been working out how to create an electrically conductive path between a gun and a target without using wires.

A weapon under development by Rheinmetall, based in Dorf, Germany, creates a conducting channel by using a small explosive charge to squirt a stream of tiny conductive fibres through the air at the victim (New Scientist print edition, 24 May 2003).

Meanwhile, Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS), based in Anderson, Indiana, will be one of the first companies to market another type of wireless weapon. Instead of using fibres, the $9000 Close Quarters Shock Rifle projects an ionised gas, or plasma, towards the target, producing a conducting channel. It will also interfere with electronic ignition systems and stop vehicles.

"We will be able to fire a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep," claims XADS president Peter Bitar.

Solid-state lasers
The gun has been designed for the US Marine Corps to use for crowd control and security purposes and is due out in 2005. It is based on early, unwieldy technology and has a range of only three metres, but an operator can debilitate multiple targets by sweeping it across them for "as long as there is an input power source," says Bitar.

XADS is also planning a more advanced weapon which it hopes will have a range of 100 metres or more. Instead of firing ionised gas, it will probably use a powerful laser to ionise the air itself. The idea has been around for decades, says LaVerne Schlie, a laser expert at the US Air Force Research Lab in Kirtland, New Mexico. It has only become practical with advances in high-power solid-state lasers.

"Before, it took a laser about the size of two trucks," says Schlie. "Now we can do it with something that fits on a tabletop."

The laser pulse must be very intense, but can be brief. So the makers of the weapons plan to use a UV laser to fire a 5-joule pulse lasting just 0.4 picoseconds - equating to a momentary power of more than 10 million megawatts.

This intense pulse - which is said not to harm the eyes - ionises the air, producing long, thread-like filaments of glowing plasma that can be sustained by repeating the pulse every few milliseconds. This plasma channel is then used to deliver a shock to the victims similar to a Taser's 50,000-volt, 26-watt shock.

Instrument of torture
HSV Technologies of San Diego, California is also working on stun and vehicle-stopping shock weapons with ranges of over 100 metres. And another company, Ionatron of Tuscon, Arizona, is due to supply a prototype wireless vehicle-mounted weapon to the US Department of Defense by the end of 2004.

But the advent of wireless stun weapons has horrified human rights groups. Robin Coupland of the Red Cross says they risk becoming a new instrument of torture. And Brian Wood of Amnesty International says the long-range stun guns could "inflict pain and other suffering on innocent bystanders".

And there are safety concerns. Of the 30,000 times US police officers have fired Tasers, in 40 instances people stunned by them later died. The deaths have been attributed to factors such as overdoses of drugs and alcohol, or fighting with officers, rather than the electric shock.

In a statement, Taser International chief Rick Smith said: "In every single case the medical examiner has attributed the direct cause of death to causes other than the Taser." Amnesty is not convinced, however, and wants an independent study of the effects of all existing and emerging electric-shock weapons.