New Robo-Weapon: Paralyzing Floodlight

Well, this ought to chill out anyone who was worried about a robotic uprising: our mechanical overlords may not kill us right away. At first, they just might zap us with a paralyzing burst of light.

The US Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) plans to demonstrate the use of a 7.5 million candlepower strobe floodlight system mounted on board an unmanned air vehicle as a non-lethal crowd-control system," the always-linkworthy Flight International tells us.

The project will see a Peak Beam Systems searchlight adapted to operate as a strobe capable of inducing physical effects, such as short-term paralysis, in humans.*

AATD
plans to award contacts to the Edgemont, Pennsylvania-based Peak
Systems for the modified searchlight in March, with demonstrations within 12 months.

US government acquisition records released on 9
February say the sole source contract calls for Peak Systems to "design and fabricate a light-based immobilisation system/deterrent device and integrate it with an unmanned aerial system. This will include any necessary medical research on frequency and amplitude modulation of high-intensity light that will cause immobilisation to all those within the beam."

The system uses a xenon-based searchlight that "can be pulsed with a unique modulation [strobe] effect that results in immobilisation to those within the beam. This effort will transition the lamp from a handheld/vehicle mounted system to an airborne platform."

But that's not the only flying robot / ray gun combo the U.S. military is examining. The Air Force is also toying with the idea of mounting its Active Denial System pain weapon on a drone, too. Just so the robots can make us feel like we're on fire, before they temporarily blind us.