The uses for tesla coils and other devices of that ilk continue to expand. This snippet talks about an Indiana company's idea for a "less than lethal" weapon type device that uses high voltage for crowd control. From a recent edition of digitaljournal.com:
Military Weapons on the Horizon
If Thor were to land in 21st-century Earth, he would be jonesing to own a lightning gun dubbed StunStrike from Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (finally, a company worthy of the name “Xtreme”). This 11-foot-high weapon shoots four-foot bolts of lightning by using an electrical charge to create a path for sparks generated by a Tesla coil. Call it the next-gen stun gun or Loki’s worst nightmare.
The company that makes this (or plans to make this, I can't tell from the company website whether this really exists or not) is called XADS. Their other product line consists of something referred to as "photonic disrupters." I think I'd like to have a photonic disrupter. Not sure what I'd do with it, but it sounds really cool. If memory serves, I think I first heard that term in the 1960s as a Star Trek weapon carried by either Romulans or Klingons.
A clever variation of this them. IIRC:
ReplyDeleteA general problem or countermeasure with any kind of *beam weapon* is that they can be readily dispersed by all manner of interference.
You can see that right in this posted photo with the forked lightning bolts.
Sooo, some clever person thought of shooting a much lower powered ionizing beam just a *short period of time* before the main beam. In this particular case, it generated a pathway of lower resistance between the weapon and the target.
Sort of like getting your victim to stand in salt water just before you hand them the electrical appliance.