ACTIVE DENIAL SYSTEM- Harmful Electromagnetic Waves
This new pain beam is an alternative to conventional weapons that are designed to injure and kill. One official said that the weapon is particularly useful when innocent persons are mixed in with adversaries.
The active-denial system weapon is designed to transmit a narrow beam of electromagnetic energyto heat the skin without causing any permanent damage. The beam is sent out at the speed of light by a transmitter measuring 10 by 10 feet (3 by 3 meters). An intense burning sensation continues until the transmitter is turned off or the targeted individual moves outside of the beam's range. The exact size and range of the beam is classified, but it is designed for long-range use. Officials report that the weapon penetrates the skin less than 0.016 inches (0.04 cm), not far enough to damage organs. Long-term exposure to , such as in , is said to be more harmful than the pain beam. Some human rights activists have voiced concerns about possible damage to eyes, but military officials contend that targeted people would likely close their eyes before damage is done.
A prototype of the U.S. military's pain beam looks like a satellite dish. Eventually, a smaller system could be mounted to Humvees, planes and ships.
Human Testing
The non-lethal energy-beam technology was developed in response to U.S. Department of Defense needs for soldiers to have options short of using deadly force, which is what most conventional weapons are designed for. The active-denial system technology was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. They have spent more than 10 years and $40 million dollars developing this new pain beam.According to an Associated Press story, the active-denial technology has been tested on 72 people at Brooks Air Force Base since 1994. Humans have been exposed to the beam more than 6,500 times for an average of less than 10 seconds, with no serious injuries resulting.
Other than minor skin tenderness caused by repeated exposure to the beam, there are no lasting effects. A review of the weapon has determined that the risk level of being injured by it is minimal. The weapon also meets all U.S. treaty obligations. Further research, development and testing are expected to continue through the summer of 2001. A final review will be performed before the weapon is declared field-ready.
With the unveiling of the pain-beam gun, the Pentagon is poising itself for a new age of warfare. U.S. armed forces are often thrown into volatile areas of the world, where enemies are intermixed with innocent citizens. The U.S. Department of Defense is preparing for these situations by designing a weapon that repels attacks but lowers the potential for unintended civilian causalities.
Laser Weapons-Airborne Laser By BOEING!!!
The airborne laser would fire a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser, or COIL, invented at Phillips Lab in 1977. The laser's fuel consists of the same chemicals found in hair bleach and Drano - hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide - which are then combined with chlorine gas and water. The laser operates at an infrared wavelength of 1.315 microns, which is invisible to the eye. By recycling chemicals, building with plastics and using a unique cooling process, the COIL team was able to make the laser lighter and more efficient while - at the same time - increasing its power by 400 percent in five years. The flight-weighted ABL module would be similar in performance and power levels to the multi-hundred kilowatt class COIL Baseline Demonstration Laser (BDL-2) module demonstrated by TRW in August 1996. As its name implies, though, it would be lighter and more compact than the earlier version due to the integration of advanced aerospace materials into the design of critical hardware components. For the operational ABL system, several modules would be linked together in series to achieve ABL's required megawatt-class power level.
Atmospheric turbulence, which weakens and scatters the laser's beam, is produced by fluctuations in air temperature [the same phenomenon that causes stars to twinkle]. Adaptive optics rely on a deformable mirror, sometimes called a rubber mirror, to compensate for tilt and phase distortions in the atmosphere. The mirror has 341 actuators that change at a rate of about a 1,000 per second.
The ABL PDRR Program is intended to show high confidence system performance scalable to Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) levels. The PDRR Program includes the design, development, integration, and testing of an airborne high-energy laser weapon system.
In May 1994, two contracts were awarded to develop fully operational ABL weapon system concepts and then derive ABL PDRR Program concepts that are fully traceable and scaleable EMD. A single contract team was selected to proceed with the development of the chosen PDRR concept beginning in November 1996. Successful development and testing of the laser module is one of the critical 'exit criteria' that Team ABL must satisfy to pass the program's first 'authority-to-proceed' (ATP-1) milestone, scheduled for June 1998. Testing of the laser module is expected to be completed by April 1998. The PDRR detailed design, integration, and test will culminate in a lethality demonstration in the year 2002. A follow-on Engineering Manufacturing and Development/Production (EMD) effort could then begin in the early 2003 time frame. A fleet of fully operational EMD systems is intended to satisfy Air Combat Command's boost-phase Theater Air Defense requirements. If all goes as planned, a fleet of seven ABLs should be flying operational missions by 2008. 
Performance requirements for the Airborne Laser Weapons System are established by the operational scenarios and support requirements defined by the user, Air Combat Command, and by measured target vulnerability characteristics provided by the Air Force lethality and vulnerability community centered at the Phillips Laboratory. The ABL PDRR Program is supported by a robust technology insertion and risk reduction program to provide early confidence that scaling to EMD performance is feasible. The technology and concept design efforts provide key answers to the PDRR design effort in the areas of lethality, atmospheric characterization, beam control, aircraft systems integration, and environmental concerns. These efforts are the source of necessary data applied to exit criteria ensuring higher and higher levels of confidence are progressively reached at key milestones of the PDRR development.
The key issues in the program will be effective range of the laser and systems integration of a Boeing 747 aircraft.
IBM Matrix Armor-Bullet Dodging Bionic Armor!!!
The present invention relates generally to the protection of an individual against a projectile propelled from a firearm. More particularly, the present invention relates to a body armor system and its method of use that is capable of detecting a projectile propelled from a firearm, computing the trajectory of the projectile, and moving the individual out of the path of the projectile to avoid being hit.In the past, the only effective protection against “sniper fire” has been to wear bullet proof body armor…. Furthermore using armor-piercing ammunition renders body-armors even less effective and desirable.
MIT plans To develop an Interplanetary Elevator
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--If you think shipping freight from Cincinnati to El Paso is challenging, imagine trying to deliver an oxygen generation unit from the Earth to a remote location on the moon.
By 2020, NASA plans to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, potentially centered on an outpost to be built at the rim of the Shackleton crater near the lunar South Pole.
To make such a scenario possible, a reliable stream of consumables such as fuel, food and oxygen, spare parts and exploration equipment would have to make its way from the Earth to the moon as predictably as any Earth-based delivery system. Or more predictably: One missed shipment could have devastating consequences when you can't easily replenish essential supplies.
To figure out how to do that, MIT researchers Olivier L. de Weck, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems, and David Simchi-Levi, professor of engineering systems and civil and environmental engineering, created SpaceNet, a software tool for modeling interplanetary supply chains. The latest version, SpaceNet 1.3, was released this month.
The system is based on a network of nodes on planetary surfaces, in stable orbits around the Earth, the moon or Mars, or at well-defined points in space where the gravitational force between the two bodies (in this case, the Earth and the moon) cancel each other out. These nodes act as a source, point of consumption or transfer point for space exploration logistics.
"Increasingly, there is a realization that crewed space missions such as the International Space Station or the buildup of a lunar outpost should not be treated as isolated missions, but rather as an integrated supply chain," said de Weck. The International Space Station already relies on periodic visits by the space shuttle and automated, unpiloted Russian Progress re-supply vehicles.
While "supply chain" usually refers to the flow of goods and materials in and out of manufacturing facilities, distribution centers and retail stores, de Weck said that a well-designed interplanetary supply chain would operate on much the same principles, with certain complicating factors. Transportation delays could be significant-as much as six to nine months in the case of Mars-and shipping capacity will be very limited. This will require mission planners to make difficult trade-offs between competing demands for different types of supplies.
A reliable supply chain will "improve exploration capability and the quality of scientific results from the missions while minimizing transportation costs and reducing risks" to crew members, de Weck said.
SpaceNet evaluates the capability of vehicles to carry pressurized and unpressurized cargo; it simulates the flow of vehicles, crew and supply items through the trajectories of a space supply network, taking into account how much fuel and time are needed for single-sortie missions as well as multiyear campaigns in which an element or cargo shipment might have to be prepositioned by one set of vehicles or crew members while being used by another.
In addition to determining a logical route, SpaceNet also allows mission architects, planners, systems engineers and logisticians to focus on what will be needed to support crewed exploration missions.
To experience an environment as close as possible to harsh planetary conditions, MIT conducted an expedition to Devon Island in the Canadian arctic in 2005. The researchers established a semi-permanent shelter at the existing NASA-sponsored Haughton-Mars Research Station (www.marsonearth.org) and compiled an inventory of materials at the base, including key items such as food, fuel, tools and scientific equipment, while carefully tracking inbound and outbound flights.
They also experimented with modern logistics technologies, such as radio frequency identification, that autonomously manage and track assets with the goal of creating a "smart exploration base" that could increase safety and save astronauts and explorers precious time.
SpaceNet 1.3 is written in MATLAB, a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis and numerical computation.
The SpaceNet development team includes MIT graduate students, postdoctoral associates and research staff led by de Weck and Simchi-Levi, aided by partners at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Payload Systems Inc., which provides science and engineering services for spaceflight applications; and NASA industry partner United Space Alliance.
For more information on SpaceNet 1.3, go to spacelogistics.mit.edu.
This work was funded by NASA.
INVISIBILITY-METAMATERIALS!!!
Tanks-Armors-More?
Should I say, one day soldiers of some countries will become invisible on war areas, Do you believe?
Yes! Absolutely, there exist invisiblity specialty holding war tanks-those high cost war warriors of modern World. And the countries having this technology, have a big competition to apply this technique to their humankind soldiers, especially to their armors.
Our keyword is "Metamaterials"
This article is one in a series of 10 stories we're running this week covering today's most significant emerging technologies. It's part of our annual "10 Emerging Technologies" report, which appears in the March/April print issue of Technology Review.
The announcement last November of an "invisibility shield," created by David R. Smith of Duke University and colleagues, inevitably set the media buzzing with talk of H. G. Wells's invisible man and Star Trek's Romulans. Using rings of printed circuit boards, the researchers managed to divert microwaves around a kind of "hole in space"; even when a metal cylinder was placed at the center of the hole, the microwaves behaved as though nothing were there.
It was arguably the most dramatic demonstration so far of what can be achieved with metamaterials, composites made up of precisely arranged patterns of two or more distinct materials. These structures can manipulate electromagnetic radiation, including light, in ways not readily observed in nature. For example, photonic crystals--arrays of identical microscopic blocks separated by voids--can reflect or even inhibit the propagation of certain wavelengths of light; assemblies of small wire circuits, like those Smith used in his invisibility shield, can bend light in strange ways.
But can we really use such materials to make objects seem to vanish? Philip Ball spoke with Smith, who explains why metamaterials are literally changing the way we view the world.
Technology Review: How do metamaterials let you make things invisible?
David R. Smith: It's a somewhat complicated procedure but can be very simple to visualize. Picture a fabric formed from interwoven threads, in which light is constrained to travel along the threads. Well, if you now take a pin and push it through the fabric, the threads are distorted, making a hole in the fabric. Light, forced to follow the threads, is routed around the hole. John Pendry at Imperial College in London calculated what would be required of a metamaterial that would accomplish exactly this. The waves are transmitted around the hole and combined on the other side. So you can put an object in the hole, and the waves won't "see" it--it's as if they'd crossed a region of empty space.
TR: And then you made it?
DRS: Yes--once we had the prescription, we set about using the techniques we'd developed over the past few years to make the material. We did the experiment at microwave frequencies because the techniques are very well established there and we knew we would be able to produce a demonstration quickly. We printed millimeter-scale metal wires and split rings, shaped like the letter C, onto fiberglass circuit boards. The shield consisted of about 10 concentric cylinders made up of these split-ring building blocks, each with a slightly different pattern.
Credit: David Deal
May be, in the coming years we will be able to use this technology for personal considerations as it represented in the film "The Hollow Man"...:P
A Big Innovation in WELDING TECHNOLOGY
A Very Economic Regulator For Gas Usage in Welding Machines!
What he is now doing is, he has a company called ALSE Trade and Mechanical Industry Co. working with his coworker teknician, also a family friend, having 3 more essential projects waiting for international patent acknowledgement. He as a first breath, exported the machine to Australia and Iran. Below, There exist a sample Welding Regulator photo...
Source
SOOme Guys Converted Sound To Light!!!
Recently, Some scientists in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has converted highest frequency sounds into light by inverting a process shifting electrical signals to sound.
They have used piezo-electric speakers those of which can be found in cell phones, also works at lower frequencies that human ears can hear.
The institution heads says "This technology can go to better computer chip developments"
Moreover; it's said that the producement of THz radiation for security, medical and many other purposes will be "easy" by using this technique.