Revenge of the Son of HERF: Microwave 'Gun' Could End High-Speed Police Chases

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=538452>

ABC News:

Microwave 'Gun' Could End High-Speed Police Chases

Company Develops Technology to Zap Fleeing Cars With Invisible Energy Beams

By PAUL ENG

Mar. 1, 2005 - The idea of a powerful ray gun has been a staple of
science-fiction writing for decades. But a "weapon" that shoots invisible
beams of energy could be making its way into law-enforcement hands soon.

 The technology isn't exactly something that would replace a police
officer's handgun. In fact, the system being developed by Eureka Aerospace
in Pasadena, Calif., couldn't even be crammed into a standard pistol
holster.

 But the developers say their device, which uses technology more closely
related to flash cooking than Flash Gordon, may help stop criminals and
terrorists in their tracks.

 James Tatoian, chief executive of Eureka, says the High Power
Electromagnetic System is designed to disable cars -- say, those fleeing
from police officers -- using bursts of microwave energy.

 "Basically, since the 1970s, every car is built with some sort of
microprocessor-controlled system -- like the ignition control and fuel pump
control a lot of vital car systems," says Tatoian. "If you introduce a
parasitic current into their wires, it leads to a power surge which in turn
burns out those microprocessors."

 Once the car's chips are disabled, the vehicle will gradually slow to a
halt, allowing police or other security forces to safely approach and
apprehend the driver.

A New Type of Nuker

 Tatoian is quick to admit that the company's experimental device isn't the
first or only directed energy system designed to attack cars. Others have
developed similar concepts and prototypes before. And some, like Eureka,
are continuing their work using partial funding from a U.S. military
research project that seeks to study the feasibility of "less than lethal"
weapons.

 But Tatoian believes his designers and researchers have come a lot further
in terms of power, portability and usability than other alternative
solutions.

 "It's still in development stages, but the system is about 200 pounds in
total weight. It will fit in a car with the [microwave] antenna mounted on
the roof," says Tatoian. "It's also worthwhile to say that produces about
10 to 15 kilovolts per meter." During tests of the early unit, that was
enough power to burn out chips in cars up to 100 meters distant.

 More importantly, the Eureka system is "tunable"

 "What's interesting is that every car has its own set of vulnerable
frequencies -- in the range of 350 megahertz to 1,300 megahertz," says
Tatoian. "The most ideal case [for our system] is where police officers
pursuing a vehicle know the make and model of the car, they then can dial
in the right frequencies that that car is vulnerable to in order to stop
it."

Better Than Busted Tires?

 Such capabilities have caught the interest of the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department, which has helped Eureka study the High Power Electromagnetic
System.

 "Everything works on paper and in the lab," says Cmdr. Charles "Sid" Heal,
who is in charge of studying new technology for the sheriff's department.
"If this thing works [in the field] as well as described, it would
tremendously help reduce risky high-speed pursuits."

 As seen in recent news video coverage, police typically try to end
high-speed chases with a so-called "spike strip" designed to puncture and
deflate the tires of a fleeing vehicle. While spike stripes can be
effective in stopping suspects' cars, Heal points out they can be difficult
to deploy properly and safely.

 "With spike strips, you have to lay them down before the suspect gets
there," says Heal. "And that raises the basic question, if you know where
they're going, then why chase [the suspects] at all?"

 But if police cruisers and helicopters were equipped with a working
version of Eureka's system, the nature of "hot pursuits" could change
dramatically.

 "It changes the strategy of how to safely end car chases," says Heal. "We
can pick and choose where and when to disable the car where it would put
the least amount of risk to the safety of our officers, the suspects and
the public."

The Bumps in the Road

 Still, Tatoian and Heal admit that there are quite a few questions and
concerns that will need to be addressed before police can stop fleeing
suspects with a push of a power button.

For one, Tatoian still needs to figure out whether the system will work in
"real world" conditions. And there are plenty of factors that Eureka
engineers will have to consider in further research and design.

 For example, while Tatoian is confident that every car has particular
"vulnerable frequencies," so far they've only been able to test the theory
on about 13 cars. And with thousands of different makes and models of
vehicles on the road today, it may be impossible to identify and isolate
the right combination for each car.

 And for the energy beam to be effective, researchers will have to deal
with factors that are beyond their control.

 "The difficult part of the technology is in 'coupling' -- getting the
microwave energy into the chips so they overload," says Heal. "A vast
majority of cars today are coated with rust coatings, thick paint or have
bodies made of plastic -- all not good conductors of energy."

 Tatoian believes that these concerns can be answered -- especially with
the help of Heal and the officers in the L.A. sheriff's department. One
possible theory that Eureka and Heal's department would like to test is
whether there are specific spots on cars that are particularly vulnerable
to microwave energy.

Smokey and the Zapper?

 Both Tatoian and Heal expect that by the end of this year, Eureka
Aerospace will be able to field a prototype that will test these theories
and other concerns.

 "When Dr. Tatoian is ready, we'll take this out to our chase test
facility," says Heal. "Our officers are all jazzed on it."

 But even if all the technical bugs get worked out, Heal says it still
might take quite a while before the system becomes another high-tech,
non-lethal tool for police officers on highway patrol.

 Heal pointed to a recent university study which documents that police
departments used less-than-lethal weapons -- Tasers, bean bags, batons,
pepper spray -- more than 60,000 times in the last 10 years.

 "One of the things we found out -- which we're often accused of by
detractors of less-than-lethal weapons -- is that when we get a new device,
we tend to overuse it," says Heal. "We'll have to go through fairly
rigorous steps before we implement new technology -- including involving
our legal department."

 In other words, lawyers ultimately will have the final say if highway
police really do live up to their "smokey" nickname.

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'