Pulse powerPulse power harnessed to defeat IEDs
Texas company wants to use pulse power as the basis of an anti-IED device; DHS will give the company $2.5 million to continue to develop the idea; company says the principle behind the anti-IED device can be use in killing cancer cells, cleansing polluted air, purifying water
The search for a solution to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) continues. Austin, Texas-based Applied Physical Electronics, will receive $2.5 million to continue to develop a device to detect and defeat IEDs. IEDs have killed or wounded more than 3,000 soldiers and civilians. Some are powerful enough to take out a twenty-two-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the men inside. Company’s scientists think they are on to the solution of disrupting and destroying those deadly devices: Targeted electronic pulse power. These ray guns could destroy the IEDs and their remote triggering devices. It is the brainchild of Dr. John Mayes. “The mission will be to kill anything electronic: radios, cell phones, computers, anything,” Mayes said. “So, anything electronics-controlling IEDs we will be able to destroy.” The ever-more powerful IEDs are made of varying materials, usually detonated by remote control: a cell phone, garage door opener, even a child’s toy. Pulse power could fry the electronics and disable the devices, even stopping a suicide bomber’s car in its tracks. “The hurdle is making the systems more compact,” Mayes said. “We’re competing with systems that fit on 60-foot, 90-foot trucks. We’re trying to make this fit on a Hummer. So, it’s trying to contain this large amount of energy and power and store it on something that’s small and deployable.”
A Marx generator — first described by Erwin Marx in 1924 — offers an example of pulse power, and may be a model of what Applied may be using in its anti-IED device. It is a type of electrical circuit the purpose of which is to generate a high-voltage pulse. It is used for simulating the effects of lightning during high voltage and aviation equipment testing. A bank of 36 Marx generators, for example, is used by Sandia National Laboratories to generate X-rays in their Z Machine. It can also be used as an ignition switch for thermonuclear devices.
Promoted by local congressmen and verified by independent scientists, pulse power could one day be expanded to ships at sea, aerial drones, or domestic border crossings. The pulse power weapons could be in Iraq within a year, eventually downsized to handheld models for individual soldiers. The company says that pulse power has peaceful applications as well: Killing cancer cells, cleansing polluted air, purifying water.
