By
Patrick Tucker
Read the rest of this article at - http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/04/army-testing-handheld-ray-guns/110815/?oref=d-mostread
Fittingly, these rifle-sized weapons would gun for other electronics.
Pew! Pew! Soldiers with handheld energy blasters are the stuff of G.I.
Joe, not real life … until now. The U.S Army is currently testing
electricity guns for possible use against electronics on the
battlefield. They don’t look like props from the popular cartoon show
but, rather like regular standard-issue M4 rifles with a pair of
antennas that shoot out from the barrel and then spread, giving the
front end of the gun a musket-like shape.
Soldiers “already carry rifles. Why not use something that every soldier already carries,” said James E. Burke, an electronics engineer with the U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC. Burke spoke with Defense One at a National Defense Industry Association event in Baltimore on Tuesday.
See the slide from Burke’s presentation below.
Burke’s apparatus, which he’s named the “Burke Pulser,” consists of
two wide antennas, a piezoelectric generator and a few other small bits
and pieces. It has a blast shield to protect the user from electricity
levels that the inventor describes as “hazardous.”
The Pulser takes the explosive energy released when the gun fires and converts it into pulses of electrical energy. This is done via the piezoelectric effect, which derives an electric charge when pressure is exerted on crystalline materials such as quartz, changing the balance of positive and negative ions.
The Pulser isn’t the first electricity gun ever invented. One of the more interesting prototypes that have emerged over the last several years came from, Seattle-based hacker Rob Flickenger, who cast a Nerf gun in aluminum and rigged it to shoot 20,000 volts of electricity a short distance.
Soldiers “already carry rifles. Why not use something that every soldier already carries,” said James E. Burke, an electronics engineer with the U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC. Burke spoke with Defense One at a National Defense Industry Association event in Baltimore on Tuesday.
See the slide from Burke’s presentation below.
The Pulser takes the explosive energy released when the gun fires and converts it into pulses of electrical energy. This is done via the piezoelectric effect, which derives an electric charge when pressure is exerted on crystalline materials such as quartz, changing the balance of positive and negative ions.
The Pulser isn’t the first electricity gun ever invented. One of the more interesting prototypes that have emerged over the last several years came from, Seattle-based hacker Rob Flickenger, who cast a Nerf gun in aluminum and rigged it to shoot 20,000 volts of electricity a short distance.
Read the rest of this article at - http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/04/army-testing-handheld-ray-guns/110815/?oref=d-mostread
