Pentagon Wants ‘Human Surrogate’ for Directed Energy Weapons Testing
May 10th, 2013If the pain ray just affects the skin, as the military has said for years, why do the “Human Surrogate” systems need simulated organs?
The spokesperson mentioned in the piece below said that the surrogate will be, “A common test target that can be used across the spectrum of non-lethal stimuli.”
That’s fine, nothing to see here, obviously. But don’t be surprised if the pain ray has some other modes that .mil hasn’t mentioned yet.
Via: Wired:
The Pentagon’s electromagnetic pain weapons are about to make a new friend. It’s an anthropomorphic test dummy that’s gonna get blasted by everything the Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons agency can throw at it.
In its latest round of small business research proposals, the Navy announced it’s seeking a sensor-outfitted “human surrogate” for use in an array of non-lethal weapon tests. That includes ”electromagnetic radiation in the L, S, and W-bands,” noted the request for proposal. Even further, there are plans to subject the luckless mannequin to everything from noise, blast pressure, electrical currents, thermal energy, and light from flashbang grenades.
Eventually, the goal is to “quickly collect data to understand injury potential by detecting, presumably via sensor systems, the effects of various non-lethal stimuli on different parts of the human body,” Alicia Owsiak, deputy chief of the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Technology Division, tells Danger Room in a statement. The JNWLD, which manages the Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons program, is coordinating the tests. “Given that the risk of injury for a non-lethal stimuli is often influenced by hit location, the test target is envisioned to be a human surrogate with respect to internal and external anatomy.”
That means these dummy people will have dummy organs.
The agency didn’t comment on the specifics of how electromagnetic weapons like the military’s Active Denial System could be used against a dummy or how its organs could be designed to react. Kelly Hughes, a spokesperson for the directorate, tells Danger Room the surrogate will be “a common test target that can be used across the spectrum of non-lethal stimuli.”
