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| March 2010 Issue |
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Repel Not Kill
Silent Guardian is transportable on standard military tactical vehicles and can be integrated into combat vehicles
By Vidhi Upadhyay |
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How many times has it occurred that innocent lives have been lost while the security forces went about their jobs, without the fault of either? In an agitation, people have been fatally injured during lathi charge or by bullets, at a check-post where police had to fire as the intention of the victim ‘seemed’ dubious, at the border where the transgressor had to be fired at, only to discover that it was an innocent transgression. With a country of more than a billion people to secure and protect, where the suspect is not easy to identify in a crowd, the security forces have but little choice than to use the lethal weapon systems they are provided with.
However, the problem is not unique to India, with the theatres of conflict across the world moving towards zones where the suspects merge with the local populace. It is to deal with such situations that Raytheon developed the Silent Guardian, a non lethal weapon system with highly discriminative technology. George M. Svitak, director, business development, Advanced Security and Energy systems, Raytheon gave FORCE a very interesting preview of the system at the DefExpo.
Silent Guardian was developed for the US government 16 years ago, but had little use as such instances were rare back then. However, the system was revived about five to six years ago as it got difficult for the forces to distinguish between a friend and foe in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatre.
Svitak explained that true to its name, the non lethal weapon system did not incapacitate the target in any way, it only created a repelling effect, synonymous to the one that is experienced near a furnace, but is much stronger and instantaneous, like radio waves. The system directed heat radiation at the target using nano waves. |
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| The nano waves, different from laser and micro waves, only affects the top layer and does not penetrate the skin hence has no side effects (several experiments were done in this regard). It comes fitted with a camera and a range finder which sees what the heat wave would see. For example, if it is installed atop a building in a crowded area and the personnel identified a suspect through the range finder, instead of firing a bullet, the personnel would just direct the beam at the person and switch on the button which would repel that person. The beam can be put on and off instantaneously and can be used to target an individual or a crowd even as the system is mounted on a 360 degrees movable stand which can be directed towards an agitating crowd to push them back from a distance of more than 250 metres. The strength and width of the beam stays same throughout. |
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