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Electromagnetic Pulse Gun To Help In Police Chases
adeelarshad82 writes "In an attempt to put an end to dangerous, high-speed police chases, scientists at Eureka Aerospace have developed an electromagnetic pulse gun called the High Power Electromagnetic System, or HPEMS. It develops a high-intensity directed pulse of electricity designed to disable a car's microprocessor system, shutting down all of its systems. Right now the prototype seen in a video fills an entire lab, but they have plans to shrink its size to hand-held proportions. Some form of this is already featured in OnStar-equipped vehicles though the electromagnetic signal used to disable the vehicle is beamed via satellite, and doesn't cripple the in-car computer, but rather puts it into a mode that allows police to easily catch and then stop the fleeing criminal."
I wonder if they'll test it on Pacemakers.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I wonder if it works on helicopters also?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How the heck is this similar to the Onstar system? This uses a directed EMP to disrupt electronic engine control, Onstar uses a built-in remote kill switch. That's like saying shooting a lightbulb is the same as turning off the switch.
Um. The electromagnetic signal that can be sent from a satellite to an OnStar-equipped vehicle is certainly not any form of an electromagnetic pulse. It's a radio signal encoded with a command telling a microprocessor to disable power to the ignition.
Who writes this mess?
I can see the fnords!
From realpolice.net:
In this 9 year period (1994-2002), the data showed that there were 2654 fatal crashes involving 3965 vehicles of which there were 3146 fatalities. Of these, 1088 were to people not in the fleeing vehicle.
If frying someone's car results in a better outcome than the above, I'm all for it.
Sounds like a great replacement for caltrops.
Metal car body?
What is this, the 1960's?
A focused EMP beam from a gun? What a great way to destroy video cameras & alarm systems! It sure would make robbery a LOT easier.
Good, that'll put an end to assholes taking cell phones into the movies and on airplanes.
And assholes with pacemakers.
EM radius *can* be aimed, you know. Like, say, a flashlight. Or a directional antenna. This isn't an EM spectrum from a nuclear airburst. It's directed radiation, probably in the microwave spectrum (the goal is to use frequencies at which circuit traces, or even better, conductive paths within ICs become antennas, causing current to flow in unintended ways)
Kinda. Ever use a handheld cell phone in a car? Chances are you have, and that it worked fine -- the signal goes right through the windows.
Same with this concept. Sure, the car's fidgety electronic bits are wrapped securely inside of grounded aluminum boxes, gasketed and/or taped to keep out all manner of pollutants and/or RFI. But connected to these boxes are hundreds of feet of unshielded, untwisted wire, all of which will act as an antenna. Meanwhile, the car's body will tend to reflect any RF that makes it inside, so with all of the weird angles in use it's just an eventuality before some of it finds its way into a bundle of wires somewhere.
So, it's obvious and foregone that it's possible to get some amount of RF into a car's electronics.
The question is: How much does it take to make the car stop working? Since the current system apparently uses a room full of gear, I'd say the answer is "lots."
Kid-proof tablet..
- it would be a field day for attorneys as police destroyed people's cars (and other property) while they were chasing a criminal.
The standard answer used by many municipalities (and accepted by many courts) is that they are not liable. There won't be a field day -- it'll be something covered by insurance, and sucks to be you if you don't have any.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Are these guys nuts or con men? They want to design a portable device to generate a directional EMP to help police stop fleeing cars. Point and click, off goes the suspect's car computer and the thing rolls to a stop. Whee! Sounds great, doesn't it? But physics and legal liabilities will stop them from getting this out of the lab. First, EMPs are not directional. So the first time a cop uses it, off goes his car and every car around him along with every bit of electronics in the cars. And every bit of electronics in the homes nearby and the stores and the hospitals, etc. Permanently. Thousands, maybe millions of dollars of damage and potentially many deaths. Let's not forget the folks with pacemakers, hearing aids or insulin pumps, either. The power required to make an EMP strong enough to disable a car isn't trivial either. It takes some huge high voltage capacitors or nasty explosives to manage the job. Los Alamos Labs can do this, but it's very expensive for each EMP produced. The car computers are pretty well shielded and located in protected areas in the car. So the EMP will have to be much stronger than what's needed to damage the computer. Almost all of the EMP will be reflected. Reflected only God knows where. Jerks.
Nevermind the fact that this has "massive liability" (i.e. instant class action lawsuits) written all over it; especially for the manufacturer of the device (Eureka Aerospace). The car might as well be sent to the crusher after being hit with this device because it will effectively be a complete loss with damaged or destroyed electronics. No doubt the insurance companies, who will be forced to "total out" stolen vehicles hit with this device, will have a thing or two to say as well.
Your average high-speed chase participant is not a criminal mastermind. They're somebody who got caught doing something stupid, and panicked.
Reminds me of my uncle, who was inside a large car crash with at least a dozen cars bumping in each other because of ice on the road.
Most cars had huge destruction of the crumple zones. You know what he had to do to fix his car? As old Mercedes SL.
Re-paint the bumpers.
You know, I can only take cars seriously, that I can scratch along walls, run into fire hydrants with, etc, without having any trouble.
I hate, that nearly every car has paint, that falls off as soon as you stare at it. And that the crumple zones don’t just spring back. Like they would, if they were made of memory metal. (Imagine that all you would have to do to fix the dents, would be, to drive trough a hot car wash!)
They are no cars. They are jokes. Falling into pieces when you touch them.
For a machine that is made to move at over 100 mph, that is ridiculous.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
You don't really understand crumple zones then....
Either you take the hit, or the car does.
I prefer a broken car over a broken spine personally.
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Strap it to a police helicopter (or a police UAV, in 10 years).
Sure, but this makes the distance much greater, requiring a yet larger arrangement (with larger capacitor bank and power supply). Police helicopters and UAVs really can't handle much of a payload. Also, even if you could get over the problem of the inverse square law with a pinpoint beam, there will still be the issue of RF bounce off the metal bodywork potentially affecting surrounding vehicles
I just wonder what will happen when they use this on a car hurtling down suburban streets at 100+mph. Killing the electronics would presumably knock out handling and stability controls as well (no power steering, no assisted or anti-lock brakes, no traction control, no airbags). Sure they can stop the engine, but they can't stop momentum. They would just turn the car into an virtually uncontrollable hunk of metal hurtling down the road at 100+mph.... until it hits something.
I remember seeing one of these things on a thing like an R/C model car on a wire, dropped down from under the police car to run forward under the suspect's car and zap it from underneath. Crazy. I aso recall, I think, a HERF gun described by Winn Schwartau at DEFCON 7 that used explosives to move a conductor *really fast* through a magnetic field, generating a huge EMP. I have my doubts about using anything like this in a city - too much chance of getting innocent bystanders, traffic light controllers etc. Maybe they could mount one in a helicopter and zap someone fleeing on the highway.
> These things will be especially popular with rapists, chasing female drivers down highways late at night.
But how often do rapists chase female drivers down highways late at night? I doubt it's as common than cops chasing crooks down highways.
So I hope you were being sarcastic, otherwise that sort of remark is similar to the "think of the children" stuff used to put in more restrictive laws.
The rapists are more likely to have guns/knives and attack their victims in the car park. Way before anybody gets to the highway.
The EMP gun might come in handy to help the cops catch the rapist - while he is driving away on the highway with the soon-to-be-raped victim.
Another issue is friendly fire you're going to be more likely to fire your fellow police car then the suspect's car. The HRF pulse also could accidentally or purposely reflected back at the source and damage radios,camera's and cell phones these are a lot less robust then an engine control computer. Last it's not exactly hard to defend against a little copper mesh and foil here and there and you can make a car almost invernable to anything less then a nuclear EMP.
Hmmm. Turning the engine off is one thing, but let's imagine a high speed chase, with instant loss of electrical power which disables the:
This could end very badly with modern automobiles, and I don't think they've thought their cunning plan all the way through.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
You may have to replace every sensor and there are several hundred. Just replacing a modern dash could is a 3 hour job on an easy car. Throw in replacing all airbags, all the sensors, the ABS computer, the ABS sensors, the fuel level sensor, the radio and the 40 or so sensors in the engine compartment. I don't think you could do that for a couple of grand.
How long do you think it will take for some disgruntled cop to point one of these at his ex-wives plane on take-off?
Hint, trains don't have "crumple zones" but somehow the train engineers survive and easily walk away when they hit cars. Perhaps you don't understand the concepts in physics called "momentum" and "energy"?
You're using the analogy of a several-ton train hitting a 1-2 ton car, and talking to someone else about not understanding momentum?
Um, since many "high-speed chases" occur at night, one of the biggest problems would likely be the instant shutoff of the headlights. Can you say "high speed crash"? Sure. I knew you could.
Really... the solution to most high-speed chases has been known for a long time, and that is: tell the police to fucking stop doing it.
The vast majority of crimes that lead to these high-speed chases did not endanger lives in the first place... until, of course, the police started the chase. THEN they did. But it is usually just not necessary: the police have access to radios, helicopters, etc. to radio ahead and run these people down. It just takes longer.
"You know, I can only take cars seriously, that I can scratch along walls, run into fire hydrants with, etc, without having any trouble."
Wouldn't it just be better in the long run if you learned how to drive?
"wow shut up" to a decent post modded +5 Insightful. Idiocracy has come to Slashdot.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Its really the deceleration. If you watch that you will notice that the smart has basically almost no crumple zones and just stops nearly immediately while the S-class is at that point still moving forward, basically pushing the smart car backwards. Mass is certainly one part of the equation as well as velocity, but also deceleration and keeping the cabin from crumpling are much bigger factors. I would say that the s-class is probably very survivable and the smart occupants would be pretty hurt, but alive. F-1 racers have special seats now that try to slow down impacts. I don't think it will totally save your life, but it does help a significant amount. (I think F-1 drivers are crazy anyways) Look up the chinese videos on youtube of the truck crash test where the bed just destroys the cab. If we start buying up chinese made cars it will be a disaster. Trust me.
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