Electromagnetic Pulse Gun To Help In Police Chases 471
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."
Before deployment (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if they'll test it on Pacemakers.
I can't wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if it works on helicopters also?
Onstar? (Score:5, Insightful)
OnStar not EMP (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
If it's safer than hot pursuit, go for it (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Before deployment (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the deaths will even get a pseudo diagnosis along the same lines as "excited delirium"...
Re:help in police chases? (Score:2, Insightful)
Metal car body?
What is this, the 1960's?
Re:Onstar? (Score:3, Insightful)
What a great tool for robbery! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Onstar? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
And you would be correct if your intent is to make the room dark. This system is like onstar in that both stop a vehicle remotely.
Re:Before deployment (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. The electrical leads used in a typical pacemaker may very well be vulnerable to such a pulse. If the EMP is powerful enough to fry the microprocessor in a car I'd bet that it is also powerful enough to at least temporarily disrupt the function of someone's pacemaker.
Re:help in police chases? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good, that'll put an end to assholes taking cell phones into the movies and on airplanes.
And assholes with pacemakers.
Re:Interesting choice of wording (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
Re:help in police chases? (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Re:Interesting choice of wording (Score:3, Insightful)
- 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.
Re:Onstar? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
And you would be correct if your intent is to make the room dark. This system is like onstar in that both stop a vehicle remotely.
Except that this is Slashdot, "news for nerds", not "news for people who only want the high level concepts". I agree with the gp.
Nothing like a portable holocost. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This is an anti-robot weapon, not anti-car (Score:5, Insightful)
Real life is not like the movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Your average high-speed chase participant is not a criminal mastermind. They're somebody who got caught doing something stupid, and panicked.
Re:If it's safer than hot pursuit, go for it (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that engineers have successfully made technology invisible, all technology is equivalent. Notice that no one in the health care debate suggested controlling costs at the technology level, only at the "insurance/payout" stage. Technology is no longer suggested as an answer, only until a solution is available on the market (e.g., video conference in lieu of commuting is not a government or business priority).
There are now two classes of people: those that don't get it, and the minority that do.
Re:help in police chases? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. (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.
Re:help in police chases? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This isn't new a new idea at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
They can't kill momentum. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This isn't new a new idea at all. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:help in police chases? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:OnStar not EMP (Score:2, Insightful)
You do realize that the NRA isn't "The National Conspiracy Theorist and Republican Right Wing Seperatist Organization", right?
The NRA, SOLELY concerns itself with firearms. It is not political and is just as quick to support a democrat with a pro-gun record as a republican. It just happens that it generally works out that the democrat is anti-gun. But regardless.
The NRA coming out about encryption would be way outside the scope of their focus, which has nothing to do with government expansion, people being black bagged, free speech, or any issues such as that. It is purely an organization concerned with firearms.
They did not really think this out. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:help in police chases? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:This is an anti-robot weapon, not anti-car (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
lol (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:help in police chases? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:help in police chases? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:help in police chases? (Score:1, Insightful)
"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?
Re:help in police chases? (Score:5, Insightful)
"wow shut up" to a decent post modded +5 Insightful. Idiocracy has come to Slashdot.
Re:help in police chases? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.