Slashdot Mirror
Boeing Patents Star Wars Style Force Field Technology
An anonymous reader was one of many to point out that Boeing doesn't want to rely on a sad devotion to an ancient religion to protect aircraft and conjure up the stolen data tapes, but plans on using force fields instead. "Boeing's new patent may let the force be with you even in real life. The aircraft and defense company has taken a cue from science fiction with its plan to develop a Star Wars style force field that would use energy to deflect any potential damage. Just liking the luminescent shields seen in the film, Boeing's "Method and system for shock wave attenuation via electromagnetic arc" could provide a real-life layer of protection from nearby impacts to targets. The downside: It won't protect from direct hits."
So really more like deflector shields.
YET
Shouldn't they need a working prototype to patent this? Oh well, I guess at least the patent will be expired before these devices actually exist.
direct hit: That's where everybody moves side to side in unison and then falls to the floor.
Then some panel blows and sparks fly everywhere - why they stopped using fuses in the future is anyone's guess.
And the guy in he red shirt will be dead. All others will be just unconscious.
Shit! Wrong franchise!
Oooohh...deflected!
Patents dont mean they can make it work. There's a patent for a warp-drive as well...
This isn't a force field it's a point defense system.
The system can sense when a shock wave generating explosion occurs near a target. An arc generator then determines the small area where protection is needed from the shock waves.It then springs into action by by emitting laser pulses that ionize the air, providing a laser-induced plasma field of protection from the shock waves.
Apparently obsession with cell phones and fax machines is a condition particular to our time and place.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This is Sci-Fi because somebody in marketing thought they could get more buzz if they called it that. It deflects shockwaves, not projectiles. Then again who knows; maybe the blasters in Star Wars just make photon shockwaves? But this just looks like trademark infringement to me.
The sad thing is their clickbait worked. But a shockwave deflector shield is pretty neat tech anyway.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
The system can sense when a shock wave generating explosion occurs near a target. An arc generator then determines the small area where protection is needed from the shock waves.
It then springs into action by by emitting laser pulses that ionize the air, providing a laser-induced plasma field of protection from the shock waves.
Perhaps I've blocked out much of the new Star Wars movies, but I certainly don't recall force fields in Star Wars. That always seemed more Star Trek to me. Calling something an "arc generator" sounds closer to arc reactor from Iron man. But I guess everything in the defense department is "Star Wars".
Star Wars features force fields that can, for example, hold the air in a spacecraft hangar even while a spacecraft flies out.
Boeing has developed a technology where lasers fire a burst of energy to turn air into plasma, causing a shock wave. When sensors detect an incoming pressure wave (from an explosion or whatever) this system creates a counter-wave.
Even when I squint and wave my hands a lot, those two things don't look much alike.
The prior art on this is not Star Wars, but reactive tank armor.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Why don't you cover the outside of the plane with 3D printers and repair any damage instantly in flight, like the Borg cube?
Once they go public with their anti-gravity technology reverse engineered from Roswell, then they will be able to admit they also have anti-gravity shields that doesn't let anything come near the ship.
Of course it's a point-defense system. Did you think it was a patent on an actual force-field generator? Don't be ridiculous.
Because some patent squatter will have that already.
"Just liking the luminescent shields seen in the film..."
Uh, when do "see" any shielding in Star Wars? Star Trek, sure, they are popping up all the time.
But I can't remember one scene in Star Wars 4, 5 or 6 where shielding is displayed. Except for the briefing scene in 6 when discussing the attack plan on Death Star 2, and that's just a holographic projection.
I would rather see Star Trek style force field technology.
Now, if they had patented Star Wars style force - that would be another thing.
Don't they mean Star Trek?
What 'reporter' says it's like "Star" anything? The claimed invention is dependent upon a shock wave traveling through air (by laser beam-induced plasma local heating). . . No one can hear you scream in space, y'know.
Oh, I see, it's the same 'reporter' that can't tell the difference between a preposition and a gerund. FTA: "Just liking the luminescent shields seen in the film...
Last time I heard about force fields and deflector shields, we created a wormhole, made the USS Eldridge disappear, and caused a bunch of navy personnel to get embedded in the bulkhead of the ship
said no one ever.
Fuses nothing. Where are the damn seat belts?
Since it only works in the atmosphere.
Wait, where does the force come from? You know, to protect from the explosion's massive shockwave, projectiles and shrapnel? Is the air sufficiently ionized by lasers to somehow prevent massive rocks and metal accelerated toward the subject from getting through, maybe transferring that kinetic energy to the system? The term "shock wave attenuation" sounds suspiciously not as useful in combat.
You can patent science fiction ideas? Unless they have a working prototype no patent should ever be awarded.
The series takes place in an alternate universe where Ralph Nader never existed.
You don't have time for seatbelts when you have to be able to instantly rush to cover a station after it blows out and kills the person manning it, duh.
Yeah, in this case all the guys in the white plastic uniforms will die instead as the reactor core blows due to a direct hit on the one small weakness in the design...
seat belts they dont need no damn seat belts - they got force fields on the windows !! Why not the chairs?
Oh wait!! ... Stack overflow recursion error!
Ray Shields for energy attacks
Particle Shields for kinetic weapons
So Boeing created ray shields. Good for them,
So they came up with that awkward description just so they could call it a Mass Wave Arc?
While Boeing may been granted the patent, it's unclear how long it will be before the company deploys the real-life force fields.
This makes me think that this is just a patent application.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
From the tortured summary the only thing that's clear is that this technology is nothing like anything in Star Wars or Star Trek, but some illiterate in PR has decided that whatever they actually do is so boring, obscure or useless that the only way to drum up any attention for them is to describe them in terms of something completely unrelated.
Does anyone have any idea what they actually do and how they do it?
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
What if you is hating them?
At the bottom of the
The lack of seatbelts makes sense. If you're on a spaceship that can accelerate quickly enough to turn everyone into a fine paste and relies on inertial dampeners (adjustments of the artificial gravity) to prevent this, then there aren't many situations where you'll need a seatbelt: either the inertial dampeners are preventing you from needing them, or you're dead. The problem is that the drama needed the ship to seem to shake. It's the same issue as feeling the ship warm up as you get close to a star: it makes for good drama, but the difference between 'humans are comfortable' and 'humans are on fire' is tiny compared to the difference between 'humans are comfortable' and 'nuclear fusion is happening' - it's far more likely that the shields would work fine and no one would be discomforted right up until the point where much of the ship vaporised.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Let's just say one of my first jobs out of college I worked at a "think tank" . A force field was indeed being tested in 1985. Boeing should not get a patent. The idea existed long ago.. it's very easy to build an device that emits an ion field to repel small objects, same idea but more power to repel projectiles.
it's a shockwave full of plasma you just created slamming into your vehicle. all die. oh the embarrassment