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A U.S. Marine feels the pain of the ADS  (Source: U.S. Marine Corps )
Weapon makes people feel like they are burning

The U.S. military has invested heavily in weapons over the years that can incapacitate enemies without killing them. One of these weapons is called the Active Denial System (ADS) and it is a non-lethal weapon that makes its target feel as if his or her skin is burning. However, the burning sensation is completely reversible.
 
The ADS was demonstrated to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos and senior members of the military at a base in Quantico, Virginia last week. The non-lethal technology has a range of up to 1000 meters.
 
“The system is state of the art technology, it’s not widely known…a lot of perceptions and misconceptions about what the system is and what it isn’t. It is a millimeter wave system, it is not a microwave,” said Marine Col. Tracy Tafolla, Director of the US DoD Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.
 
The beam created by the weapon is a 95-gigahertz, millimeter wave beam that only penetrates 1/64 of an inch into the skin. System has been researched for 15 years and Tafolla thinks the system is safe. The range of the ADS system is much further than that of other non-lethal weapons that use kinetic energy. The range of the ADS is said to be 10 times that of traditional non-lethal weapons
 
The weapon was briefly deployed in Afghanistan but never used in combat. The military says many people confuse the technology with a microwave. The 95-gigahertz frequency is only absorbed superficially by the skin and the military says they've done over 11,000 exposures on people with only two injuries. Despite the fact that the ADS uses a wave 100 times the power of a regular microwave, it's unable to transfer enough heat to pop a bag of popcorn. The trigger also only activates the weapon for 3 seconds.
 
“It could be used across the military spectrum of operations, perimeter security, crowd control, entry control points. You name it. I think our forces will figure out the many different applications that it would have,” Tafolla said.

Sources: Marines, Defense News


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"crowd control"
By tigz1218 on 3/12/2012 10:36:40 AM , Rating: 5
Coming to a city near you when inflation hits the fan and you can't afford food or gas. Nothing to see here move along.




RE: "crowd control"
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 3/12/2012 10:45:47 AM , Rating: 5
Hey, are those Occupy protesters still around......

;)


RE: "crowd control"
By tigz1218 on 3/12/2012 11:01:39 AM , Rating: 2
Ha, the occupy people are mostly just lazy people asking for handouts. Very rarely did I come across an intelligent one. (my office was located on wall street last year)Inflation will affect everyone though when it hits.


RE: "crowd control"
By jaack on 3/12/2012 1:13:29 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe the people who HAD worked @ Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bro & Bear Sterns wanted to know why the top exec walked away with HUNDREDS of MILLION$$ each and they are out of work!!! You are lucky to have a job & probably get a nice Wall St bonuses every year too. Inflation hits the poorest the hardest! Stan O'Neill CEO Merrill got $165 million day before BOA takeover. We got FIRED!
HOW DARE YOU CALL US LAZY!


RE: "crowd control"
By connor4312 on 3/12/2012 1:35:14 PM , Rating: 2
Ah, I thought I smelled a troll somewhere around here!


RE: "crowd control"
By ppardee on 3/13/2012 1:55:16 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, I'll bite.

People who sit around in a park all day an whine that they don't have any money are lazy. People who go out and do what needs to be done to feed their family and pay their bills are not. There is work out there. Many people just aren't willing to do any.


RE: "crowd control"
By thurston2 on 3/12/12, Rating: -1
RE: "crowd control"
By theapparition on 3/12/2012 12:00:57 PM , Rating: 5
I didn't see anyone objecting to their protest, even after they were illegally "occupying" public and private land for over a month.

I did see people getting pissed off from their trash, lack of hygiene, and bad behavior. That's why they were told to leave.


RE: "crowd control"
By Reclaimer77 on 3/12/2012 12:06:12 PM , Rating: 2
Not to mention the occasional rape and murder. Such a lovely movement.


RE: "crowd control"
By ekv on 3/12/2012 1:26:10 PM , Rating: 2
In contrast, Tea Party protests have had zero crime. Whereas Occupy has had several Felonies and Misdemeanors, not to mention the $19 million in police OT and property damage.


RE: "crowd control"
By nick2000 on 3/12/2012 1:54:23 PM , Rating: 3
Tea pay protests never lasted more than a few hours. Longer actions inevitably reflect society and we do not have a very nice looking society.


RE: "crowd control"
By ekv on 3/12/2012 7:13:18 PM , Rating: 2
Evidently, the Tea Party already understands that. Even so, I'd stack up a polite Tea Party against the criminal Occupy crowd any time.

And no racial slurs were even uttered, despite bounty's to the contrary [including the one dreamed up by "Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga, and Andre Carson, D-Ind.", only later to be shown false, w/o apology].


RE: "crowd control"
By mcnabney on 3/13/2012 9:58:39 AM , Rating: 2
The slurs at Tea Party rallies came from the crowd, not the speakers.


RE: "crowd control"
By rlandess on 3/13/2012 10:53:19 AM , Rating: 1
The Tea Party movement WAS a crime. Zing!

There, it's even, Occupy and Tea Party movements were both worthless. At least Occupy hasn't managed to garner any political clout.


RE: "crowd control"
By Boze on 3/12/2012 10:55:50 AM , Rating: 3
If things ever get "that bad", look only to the comic book (or movie, if you prefer), V for Vendetta.

All the non-lethal weapons in the world aren't gonna stop a few hundred thousand to tens or hundreds of millions of angry people.

Maybe I'm an idealistic fool, but I'd like to believe things will never go that far in this country, but history, and the increasingly restrictive and probing laws that are passed each year, have shown that I'm probably being a naive jackass.


RE: "crowd control"
By mcnabney on 3/12/2012 2:54:19 PM , Rating: 2
Things will get far worse.

There is serious hate in this country. Breakup of Yugoslavia hate. While it is by no means restricted to the Right, go read some of the posts on Free Republic. There are some seriously sick people on their publicly posting their desire to do physical harm to just about anyone on the Left.


RE: "crowd control"
By Solandri on 3/12/2012 4:28:42 PM , Rating: 5
IMHO the hate is coming from the extreme left- and right-wings. The problem is our two-party system exaggerates their influence. If you assume a bell curve, or heck even a straight line for distribution of political affiliation, the average polices the country should be implementing are in the center.

The two-party system however means that, like the primaries, the only policies which have a chance to pass are either at the center of the right half, or the center of the left half. Not truly representative of the country overall. In practice, because a major goal in campaigning is to differentiate your candidate from the opposition, the positions end up being even further from the center and closer to the extremes.

Eliminate the two-party system, and those hateful extreme fringe groups fall so far outside the mainstream that they have nearly zero political influence. A lot of the hate goes away. We get policies (and politicians) which, though we may disagree with, we will find palatable.

How do you eliminate the two-party system? Easy. The current plurality-wins voting system has been mathematically proven to favor a two-party system. A conservative voting for Ron Paul or a liberal voting for Ralph Nader is doing the equivalent of not voting at all. Change it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
There are other arguably better voting systems, but IRV is one of the easiest to implement.


RE: "crowd control"
By rvd2008 on 3/14/2012 12:09:35 PM , Rating: 2
Easy you say? Let's put aside "arguably better" arguments...
There are about 200 years behind the Constitution and Electoral college. I do not see how you could make any change without a conflict of Civil War scale in this country.


RE: "crowd control"
By Mint on 3/14/2012 2:31:43 PM , Rating: 2
IRV is a great suggestion, but I don't see it affecting the political processes you mentioned in your post.

The policies that have a chance to pass will still be around the center. The major party on the left will still focus 95% of their attacks on the right and vice versa. I don't really get this statement:
quote:
Eliminate the two-party system, and those hateful extreme fringe groups fall so far outside the mainstream that they have nearly zero political influence.
How does IRV achieve this? It could well have the opposite effect of what you want: Right now, chasing Nader and Paul voters is pointless, but with IRV you want to be their second choice.

I think there's a much more fundamental issue here. Citizens in the US want it to go in two different general directions. Some want it slightly more socialist than the past, keeping SS/etc and extending health care. Others want it to be less so, cutting all these benefits down and maybe even eliminating unions and minimum wage. Very few people are happy with the status quo, and understandably so.

The problem is that we can't handle this at a state level because people pay into and receive from benefits at different times in their lives, and we can't make people stay in a state their whole lives to get benefits (mobility is a huge advantage of the US over Europe). A lot of productive people get educated in one state, work in another, and retire in yet another, but it worked for decades because everyone agreed to the basic notions of social security, welfare, medicare, etc for decades, and had no problem with the redistribution that resulted.

So how do we deal with this issue? Best I can think of is state coalitions, but that looks like a mess...


RE: "crowd control"
By TSS on 3/13/2012 4:16:12 AM , Rating: 2
No offence, but when it comes down to that i'm inclined to think more-then-lethal weapons will be used, rather then less then lethal.


"Active denial" vs. torture
By nafhan on 3/12/2012 11:02:16 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
makes people feel like they are burning
I guess it may boil down to usage, but it seems like this could fall under the UN's definition of torture:
quote:
For the purposes of this Convention [United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment], the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.




RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By ViroMan on 3/12/2012 11:19:40 AM , Rating: 2
Use a smaller version of this device in an interrogation room?
Plant it in the walls and aim it at the chair the target sits in... to the interrogator(who of course doesn't know the device is there for plausible deniability) asking questions and then sees the dude freak out for no reason. Wonderful. :)


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By TeXWiller on 3/12/2012 3:04:44 PM , Rating: 2
I'm thinking about a box sized device, with the Honorable..I mean official holding Gom Jabbar..I mean recorder near the jugular of the person being tested..I mean interrogated. The enhanced methods would entail a pain box on every limb so that even a baron could feel the burn.


By theapparition on 3/12/2012 12:03:56 PM , Rating: 3
Only applicable if used in the context of interrogation. Even then the definition is suspect.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Reclaimer77 on 3/12/12, Rating: -1
RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By BillyBatson on 3/12/2012 4:16:28 PM , Rating: 2
Umm.... You are totally wrong.... This could very easily and effectively be used as a torture device! Yeah it makes you feel really hot like you are on fire.. I don't know about you but after being hit by this rays a couple of times while being unable to get away I'm pretty sure I'll be telling them whatever they want to hear and do would you. Have you actually ever been burned? Even from a magnifying glass? Now imagine being strapped to a chair as I spend a half hour running a magnifying glass up and down your face and rest of your body. Many people feel dying by fire is the worst way to go with drowning being a close 2nd and we have all heard of Chinese water torture and all the other ways the world uses water to torture or extract information. Well this thing is worse than that and the best part is there is no evidence of being tortured afterwards.
Think before you speak boy.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Reclaimer77 on 3/12/12, Rating: 0
RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By BillyBatson on 3/13/2012 1:50:38 AM , Rating: 2
Wait you're assuming they will use this device as advised?!?!? Sorry BOY but you have even less imagination than originally thought.
Why CAN'T you be strapped to a chair while this thing is aimed at you, on, AND running for more than 3 seconds?!?!? TELL ME PLEASE?!?!??! lol. Because it can absolutely be used for that. Extract information from terrorists or any one else captured and unwilling to share information.... And that's just by our country! What if one of these fell into the hands of an enemy? They wouldn't use it to torture people? They wouldn't use it to get info out of any one? They won't be the first people to try and get it to stay on longer than 3 seconds at a time?
Just because the press release doesn't mention every possible use, or bring up the consequences of it being used on someone who is incapable of "moving out of the way," doesn't mean it can't be or won't be used in that way. Use a magnifying glass on an insect and it moves out of the way right?!? But then don't you move the magnifying glass along with the insect? Or put the insect in something it can't crawl out of while burning it with the sun?
Maybe I just have a twisted imagination but the first question that came to mind is what if I couldn't move and it stayed on longer. Both very possible scenarios.
You need more of an imagination than your one track thinking, boy.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Reclaimer77 on 3/13/2012 2:09:03 AM , Rating: 1
LOL why would we need this special device for torture? If you're tied up in a chair there are any number of things I can do to you already! Hell waterboarding has gotten scores of people to talk, and it costs practically nothing.

By your logic any number of things should not be invented or developed because they could be used in perverse ways. How typically draconian. I guess we better ban all lasers. They can burn you and even blind you! We could use those for torture too!

quote:
What if one of these fell into the hands of an enemy?


Are you Tom Clancy or something? This is hardly a difficult concept. The "enemy" could easily build one themselves. I doubt this is any more effective for torture as waterboarding, burning the skin, mutilating the genitals, shoving reeds under your fingernails or just breaking bones.

quote:
Maybe I just have a twisted imagination


That's probably what happens when you forget your Ritalin. Using your imagination is fine, but you seem to think it's a far gone conclusion that these things will happen. If we measured things by what "could" happen, we would still be living in caves, afraid of science.

We split the atom for power and for weapons. We accelerate particles near the speed of light and slam them into each other. We drive vehicles at speeds that give us enough kinetic energy to drive through a building. I think we can handle a freaking heat ray, chicken little.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Reclaimer77 on 3/13/2012 2:15:17 AM , Rating: 1
By the way, do you think our current enemy gives a damn about a "non-lethal deterrent"? Seems to me when they go out, they go out to kill as much as possible. Not to cause discomfort! How stupid are you?


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By BillyBatson on 3/13/12, Rating: -1
RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By BillyBatson on 3/13/2012 2:28:17 AM , Rating: 2
Why not?! SINCE IT DOESN'T LEAVE EVIDENCE OF TORTURE!!!! Buddy come on untold you get a better imagination? Think outside the box? Think outside of what you are told in media and what you read here on anandech.... Severe discomfort along with no side effects (currently disclosed of any way) and possibly no evidence/markings afterwards?! This sounds perfect for torture! Especially if you are torturing someone for a long time say days, weeks, months, years?!? You could torture someone every day without the need for them to recover for any wounds or trauma other than perhaps mentally.

Why would I have to be Tom Clancy? Did the US not just lose a UAV in Iran? How much easier would it be to high jack a Humvee with one or these, or kill a solder carrying a more compact handheld version? No not ever enemy can just "make one." Terrorists in Afghanistan and the like especially insurgents? Etc can't just make one, they can't even make rifles! Thy buy them or take them from dead soldiers on either side. I didn't say china had to reverse engineer this thing, I said an ENEMY that could be a 12 year old in africa protecting some blood diamond mine, whoever.

I never said we shouldn't develop this, I didn't say it would only bring negative use, I simply stated how ridiculous you were by saying this can't be used for torture. It clearly can be. Will it be? Hopefully not. But it can be. Making you 100% wrong by saying it can't be. Simple.... Even for someone without an imagination, or rational thinking.....


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By BillyBatson on 3/12/2012 4:21:40 PM , Rating: 2
Btw they have also used water hoses on individuls including ones already in custody say a jail cell? As torture and punishment....


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By nafhan on 3/13/2012 10:15:14 AM , Rating: 2
We'll go with a simpler definition for torture then: using pain to coerce people into doing or saying something, which is absolutely what this is for.

Now to pick apart your individual points:
quote:
All this does is make you feel really hot.
And all waterboarding does is make you feel like you're drowning.
quote:
we're not talking about using this on detained people to extract information
So, are you arguing that torture-like actions are OK as long as they are not used for interrogation? That's... awesome.
quote:
This is clearly for area denial and crowd control.
So, you're also saying that calling it "crowd control" instead of torture makes it acceptable?
quote:
It's no more torturous than using fire hoses on a crowd.
This is pretty vague and depends largely on how both the fire hose and the "area denial" device are used.

Finally... I'm somewhat on the fence regarding the usage of these things, but leaning towards against it. Used properly, these things could be useful and save lives. Unfortunately, experience has shown that the likelihood for misuse is essentially 100%.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Rhonkar on 3/12/2012 2:59:53 PM , Rating: 2
Since when did the UN matter when concerning the United States, except for their ability to annoy the rest of the world by exercising their veto?

The issue of torture does come into my mind though, but it is coming from the usual places where they're never held responsible for their actions anyway.

This weapon only convinces me to continue my development into high powered lasers with auto-groin tracking.


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By nafhan on 3/13/2012 10:19:15 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Since when did the UN matter when concerning the United States, except for their ability to annoy the rest of the world by exercising their veto?
I felt like it was a good (although a bit wordy) definition.
quote:
This weapon only convinces me to continue my development into high powered lasers with auto-groin tracking.
I sincerely hope this works out! :)


RE: "Active denial" vs. torture
By Nfarce on 3/13/2012 7:23:30 PM , Rating: 1
Then f^ck it. We'll go back to using real bullets and snipers in wars.


Burning Skin is one thing, What about people's eyes?
By Etsp on 3/12/2012 12:55:37 PM , Rating: 3
This technology looks very interesting and will hopefully lead to less lethal "non-lethal" crowd control methods. I believe them when they talk about how little damage the device does to someone's skin.

What I'm concerned about is: What happens when someone looks directly at the device? Does the beam penetrate a bit further into the eye than it does to skin? Perhaps making it to the lens?

What about people wearing contacts?

I've heard about this device for a while, but for some reason their press releases never mention this. What happened to the two injured people? Eye injury?




By Schrag4 on 3/12/2012 1:37:32 PM , Rating: 2
I'm thinking if this thing caused a burning sensation on your eyes, you'd close them pretty darn quickly. Then it would just be your eyelids feeling the pain.

As far as the 2 injuries - total speculation, but they could have been from the reaction to the pain instead of the devide itself (falling, etc). Or it could be that they limit each trigger pull to 3 seconds because of those 2 injuries ;-)


By ppardee on 3/13/2012 2:05:13 PM , Rating: 2
At least one of the injuries was a second-degree burn, but this was in a lab, not a field test, so the conditions may have been weird.


It's baaaack...
By WinstonSmith on 3/12/2012 11:04:26 AM , Rating: 2
The multi-million dollar outdoor people microwave oven, the one they didn't send to Iraq as planned because they finally realized a $10 RPG-7 shot by some angry Iraqi would take it out in a millisecond. So, where is such a device useful? Riot control of civilians in countries where RGPs aren't present.




RE: It's baaaack...
By nick2000 on 3/12/2012 1:52:00 PM , Rating: 2
It also expects people not to cover their skin with clothing...


By Beenthere on 3/12/2012 11:08:43 AM , Rating: 2
Follow directions or wish you had.




Fine with me.
By Articuno on 3/12/2012 12:31:29 PM , Rating: 2
At least with this kind of thing around we'll have UN support when the inevitable revolution happens.




Easily defeated
By johnsmith9875 on 3/12/2012 3:54:46 PM , Rating: 2
Wear copper mesh.




not new
By jeff666 on 3/12/2012 9:08:45 PM , Rating: 2
Saw this on Future weapons TV show at least 2 years ago.




Foil hats FTW
By ppardee on 3/13/2012 2:07:53 PM , Rating: 2
Time for a foil body suit. This weapon can be foiled (HA!) by a Faraday cage, or a thin metallic film to hide behind. Time to make Mylar jump suits.




.308
By saganhill on 3/14/2012 8:45:29 AM , Rating: 2
And whats to prevent a good shot from a .308 hunting rifle from rendering this million dollar piece of hardware useless?




By Mint on 3/14/2012 2:39:53 PM , Rating: 1
It's one thing to have tasers, but is anyone else disturbed by the idea of people being able to pocket this sort of weapon and harass others without them even knowing who their attacker was?

If the internet taught us anything, it's that anonymity is a license to be a complete asshole. The ability to anonymously and wirelessly create a burning sensation isn't going to be a positive development for humanity...




lmao...
By NellyFromMA on 3/12/12, Rating: -1
RE: lmao...
By Hakuryu on 3/12/2012 11:58:58 AM , Rating: 2
I've seen this thing in action, probably on Future Weapons, and it is exactly what they say. You see a target standing there, while this big thing on top of a Humvee is turned on - after a second the target who was previously smiling, jumps like they've been stung all over.

The 'targets' say it's impossible to stand there and take it for more than a second, yet after a few moments they felt nothing in an area not being hit.


RE: lmao...
By Rhonkar on 3/12/2012 3:43:47 PM , Rating: 2
This is why the LRAD will always be superior, if it can't permanently damage people... what's the fracking point?

When I visit a gook village.. the last thing I want to do is burn people until they move.. I want to fire an RPG into a school for 50 points!


RE: lmao...
By NellyFromMA on 3/12/2012 4:11:17 PM , Rating: 1
Just because someone can't physically endure having this thing beamed at them for long because of the pain it inflicts doesn' tmean it wouldn't cause long-term effects for someone who DID endure it. Heck, two people were injured outright from testing.

Just because its so painful that no one WANTS to stay in its field of effect doesn't mean it doesn't cause injury or long term harm. Big difference, isn't it?


RE: lmao...
By BillyBatson on 3/12/2012 4:35:36 PM , Rating: 2
Belly it sounds like you don't know how this technology works exactly and you hav paranoid assumptions running through your mind.... Now could there be some radiation associated with this weapon? Sure!!!! Now is that radiation any more or less than say a standard laser pointer? You don't know that!!! A strong microwave would penetrate deeper into your skin, possible cook/heat you from the inside, and introduce deadly levels of radiation. This milliwave system they have if it really can not penetrate deeper than what the article claims with heat or radiation than it Samoyed actually be pretty safe after all and at best if the weapon malfunctions and kept on longer than 3 seconds you might suffer external burns but nothing life threatening. Though it's just an assumption but most likely the "two" injured during testing could have had only small burns but still went on the books as an injury. It's possible they could have had visual injury. Out of 11,000? That's not bad a standard Taser causes a lot more harm than that with its prongs.
Don't be paranoid. The only thing you should worry about is long term radiation exposure but sounds like this hardly has any. If any thing the weapon operator might have more long term exposure if not properly shielded than a passing transgressor.
Don't be paranoid.


RE: lmao...
By NellyFromMA on 3/13/2012 10:37:59 AM , Rating: 2
What part of being concerned about a new weapon that can fall into less than responsible hands and possibly even be used to torture people makes me paranoid?

If someone can be burned by this, in any way, then my point is proven.......

By the wya, I thought forums were where people expressed there opinions in hope of constructive dialog and debate, not to get trashed on by pseudo intellectuals who can't stand opinions and thoughts that stray from there own. My bad.


RE: lmao...
By geddarkstorm on 3/12/2012 12:20:51 PM , Rating: 2
Microwaves are centimeters in size, this is probably above the 10 gigahertz range of far infrared. It's likely directly tripping the heat pain sensors in our skin without actually causing much localized heating. At least, that's what it sounds like from the description.

The ultimate weapon of rejection!


RE: lmao...
By TSS on 3/13/2012 4:01:51 AM , Rating: 2
Ofcourse it harms people. It's called "non-lethal" not "non-harmfull".

Beanbags, tasers and teargas are also pretty painfull. The point is, they won't kill you. Neither will this.

.... Best to just walk away when they point this at you though.


RE: lmao...
By NellyFromMA on 3/15/2012 12:13:45 PM , Rating: 2
I find tasers to be in poor taste too.


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