https://www.discovermagazine.com/techno ... uce-voices
Military Weapon Uses Lasers to Produce 'Voices'
By Lauren SigfussonMar 27, 2018 9:40 AM
Can you hear me now? Play the video below to see if you can hear a "voice". (Credit: YouTube/Patrick Tucker/Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program) Are you hearing voices? Say yes and many people might question your sanity. But hearing voices is exactly what the United States military hopes will happen with a weapon it's currently developing. The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWD) is building a weapon called the Laser Induced Plasma Effect. Here’s how it works according to Patrick Tucker of Defense One:
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/20 ... ir/146824/
“The weapon is composed of two parts: first, a femtosecond laser, which shoots a burst of focused light for 10−15 seconds, just long enough to rip the electrons from air molecules and create a ball of plasma. (Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, plasma is a field of electrified gas, highly responsive to electromagnetic effects.) The scientists then hit that plasma field with a second nanolaser, tuned to an extremely narrow range of wavelengths. They use that to manipulate the plasma field in a way that can produce light and noise. Get the interaction precise enough and you get something that sounds like a haunted walkie-talkie.”
Turn your volume on, but not too loud or you'll give your ears a shock. Give it a listen (or two). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPU6ZL8kvhA Frankly, I had to listen to it several times because I couldn't determine what exactly should be the "voice". But once I made it through the screech-like sounds, I heard what seems like an extremely muffled human voice. It's a bit of a stretch, though. YouTube commenters are describing the sound as a broken NES, dubstep and, my personal favorite, a dial-up modem. Non-lethal weapons are designed to incapacitate targets, while minimizing fatalities, injuries and damage to the target’s surroundings. These types of weapons are used in missions ranging from peacekeeping to full-scale combat. They're especially useful in urban environments and crowd management. Within the next three years, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program hopes the device will produce noise, light, and even heat.
Military Weapon Uses Lasers to Produce 'Voices'
Re: Military Weapon Uses Lasers to Produce 'Voices'
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2 ... ir/146824/
SCIENCE & TECH
The US Military Is Making Lasers That Create Voices out of Thin Air
Within three years, the Pentagon's non-lethal weapons lab hopes to have a direct energy weapon that can produce an effect like a haunted walkie-talkie or the biblical burning bush.
BY PATRICK TUCKER
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
MARCH 20, 2018
TECHNOLOGY
Watch the video above and listen carefully for what sounds like a human voice during the second spin. That’s not an audio recording or a broadcast transmitted over radio...it’s not human at all. It’s an auditory effect that’s created by military scientists who manipulated the air with lasers — and it’s the Pentagon’s most interesting idea for stopping people charging checkpoints, or just scaring the crap out of them.
The U.S. military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is inching closer to a weapon that alters atoms to literally create words from thin air. It’s called the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect and, fingers crossed, they hope to be able to say intelligible words within the next three years.
The weapon is composed of two parts: first, a femtosecond laser, which shoots a burst of focused light for 10−15 seconds, just long enough to rip the electrons from air molecules and create a ball of plasma. (Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, plasma is a field of electrified gas, highly responsive to electromagnetic effects.) The scientists then hit that plasma field with a second nanolaser, tuned to an extremely narrow range of wavelengths. They use that to manipulate the plasma field in a way that can produce light and noise. Get the interaction precise enough and you get something that sounds like a haunted walkie-talkie.
“We’re this close to getting it to speak to us. I need three or four more kilohertz,” says David Law, who runs JNLWD’s technology division. Ultimately, he wants a single system that can produce multiple effects — noise, light, even heat — and replace a wide variety of non-lethal weapons that the military has been testing. We have the exclusive video.
The weapon’s most interesting aspect may be the way it creates noise: at a specific and distant point in space, rather than blasting it out of a nearby speaker. That means that soldiers between the weapon and the target are unaffected.
How far away can that point be? “Range is a function of the optics. The bigger the mirrors, the farther the range,” Law said. A five-inch mirror creates the effect about one kilometer away; an 8-inch mirror, about five kilometers, he said. “They’ve created plasmas at 20 or 30 kilometers,” he said. “This is the first non-lethal weapon that could go out tens of kilometers.”
The Kerr effect, a term that refers to minute changes in the refractive index as a result of electromagnetic field changes, makes it actually easier to create the effect at a distance.
“One of the things about the ultra short pulse, it wants to form at longer ranges. It’s harder to form at shorter ranges,” said Law.
SCIENCE & TECH
The US Military Is Making Lasers That Create Voices out of Thin Air
Within three years, the Pentagon's non-lethal weapons lab hopes to have a direct energy weapon that can produce an effect like a haunted walkie-talkie or the biblical burning bush.
BY PATRICK TUCKER
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
MARCH 20, 2018
TECHNOLOGY
Watch the video above and listen carefully for what sounds like a human voice during the second spin. That’s not an audio recording or a broadcast transmitted over radio...it’s not human at all. It’s an auditory effect that’s created by military scientists who manipulated the air with lasers — and it’s the Pentagon’s most interesting idea for stopping people charging checkpoints, or just scaring the crap out of them.
The U.S. military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is inching closer to a weapon that alters atoms to literally create words from thin air. It’s called the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect and, fingers crossed, they hope to be able to say intelligible words within the next three years.
The weapon is composed of two parts: first, a femtosecond laser, which shoots a burst of focused light for 10−15 seconds, just long enough to rip the electrons from air molecules and create a ball of plasma. (Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, plasma is a field of electrified gas, highly responsive to electromagnetic effects.) The scientists then hit that plasma field with a second nanolaser, tuned to an extremely narrow range of wavelengths. They use that to manipulate the plasma field in a way that can produce light and noise. Get the interaction precise enough and you get something that sounds like a haunted walkie-talkie.
“We’re this close to getting it to speak to us. I need three or four more kilohertz,” says David Law, who runs JNLWD’s technology division. Ultimately, he wants a single system that can produce multiple effects — noise, light, even heat — and replace a wide variety of non-lethal weapons that the military has been testing. We have the exclusive video.
The weapon’s most interesting aspect may be the way it creates noise: at a specific and distant point in space, rather than blasting it out of a nearby speaker. That means that soldiers between the weapon and the target are unaffected.
How far away can that point be? “Range is a function of the optics. The bigger the mirrors, the farther the range,” Law said. A five-inch mirror creates the effect about one kilometer away; an 8-inch mirror, about five kilometers, he said. “They’ve created plasmas at 20 or 30 kilometers,” he said. “This is the first non-lethal weapon that could go out tens of kilometers.”
The Kerr effect, a term that refers to minute changes in the refractive index as a result of electromagnetic field changes, makes it actually easier to create the effect at a distance.
“One of the things about the ultra short pulse, it wants to form at longer ranges. It’s harder to form at shorter ranges,” said Law.