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Nonlethal military weapons — skin-heating rays, nausea-inducing “puke lights” and helicopter-launched nets, all being developed locally — could represent the future of defense and homeland security funding as the U.S. goverment prepares to scale back military spending.
With possible cuts in large-scale defense programs, such as the new DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer, later this month, according to local experts, the Department of Defense may be ready to emphasize innovations that include the development of nonlethal weapons.
“As we scale back the amount of money available for new systems, these are the things that are going to attract dollars in the future,” said Defense Technology Initiative director Don Quenneville.
While a DOD spending bump on nonlethal weapons may be speculative, local tech companies are already hard at work developing nonlethal defense technologies.
Alexei Erchak, chief technology officer of Billerica-based LED company Luminus Devices Inc., was surprised to find out that the technology developed by the company he founded could be used as a weapon to make someone vomit. After seeing a magazine article about an out-of-state optical technology company making a nonlethal weapon — nicknamed the “puke light” — resembling a flashlight designed to dazzle and sicken an opponent, Luminus contacted the company and has supplied the weapon’s LED component since.
“It was actually part of the original vision for the company,” Erchak joked.
Luminus also provides LEDs for another defense contractor making a “flashbang” grenade, which pulses light to disorient an enemy, according to vice president of sales and marketing John Langevin. Langevin said the company plans to increase its defense business, though it will keep its focus on its traditional lighting market.
Quenneville also cited Providence-based Textron Inc., which makes control systems for nonlethal weapons systems, and Waltham-based Foster-Miller Inc., which makes a “ballistic net” deployed from a helicopter called a “boat trap.” Foster-Miller’s boat trap could prove useful against pirate ships off the coast of Somalia, for example, Quenneville said. “You could go apprehend them or just leave them there,” he said.
Nonlethal weapons are a new, growing market for Waltham-based defense giant Raytheon Co., and a new area for the Department of Defense, according to John Finkenaur, Raytheon’s Active Denial System (ADS) project manager. The United States has been slower to adopt the technology than European countries. “It’s getting there,” he said.
Last week, Raytheon landed a Phase 2 contract from the Department of Defense Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program to develop gallium nitride as a solid-state semiconductor for use in the non-lethal active denial weapon system it developed. The ADS is a truck-mounted weapon that uses microwaves to create a heating sensation on the surface of the skin. It can incapacitate, slow or expose threats, such as suicide bombers or snipers, in a crowded area.
“If 11 people are on the ground, and one guy is still coming at you, he might need to be engaged in a different way,” said Finkenaur.
The truck-based ADS uses gyrotrons as semiconductors — which work well for large systems, Finkenaur said. Replacing the gyrotrons with gallium nitride will enable it to run cooler and more efficiently, allowing Raytheon to shrink the size of the weapon. More importantly, using gallium nitride reduces the two-hour warmup time it takes for a gyrotron ADS to become usable after powering on.
“If you’re a Marine in Baghdad, that could be a problem,” Finkenaur said. Raytheon is developing an active denial system small enough for a soldier to use in the field, Finkenaur said.
His team got the idea in 2008, after talking to a Marine home from Iraq whose friend had lost a leg to a sniper’s bullet. Using an active denial system, soldiers could buy themselves time to find a sniper, sweeping a broad area to incapacitate or expose the sniper. “It helps to ferret that sniper out,” Finkenaur said.
Nonlethal Weapons
What they do and who makes them
Puke light
LED pulses light to dazzle, disorient and nauseate
Luminus Devices Inc.*
Laser dazzler
Emits light to temporarily blind subjects from a distance
LE Systems Inc.
Boat trap
“Ballistic net” shot at boats from helicopters
Foster-Miller Inc.
Skunk
Foul-smelling mist dispersed from water cannon used for crowd control
Israeli Defense Forces
Flash bang
LED “grenade” strobes blinding light
Luminus Devices Inc.*
Long range acoustic device
Directs focused sound as warning and deterrent
American Technology Corp.
Active denial system
Directed energy weapon shoots microwaves at subject, causing a burning feeling on the skin
Raytheon Co.
*Supplies LED component for weapon
Source: MHT research
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