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AKA: Arbeitskreis Physik und Abrüstung
AKA 3: Neue Technologien, Dual-Use und präventive Rüstungskontrolle
AKA 3.2: Talk
Thursday, March 29, 2007, 12:30–13:00, H45
Millimeter-Wave Beam Weapon: No Lingering Damage? — •Jürgen Altmann — Experimentelle Physik III, Universität Dortmund, 44221 Dortmund
Since 1994 the so-called Active Denial System has been developed in the USA (secret until 2001), which is to produce heat pain with 95-GHz radiation (penetration depth in skin about 0.4 mm) from a 3-m size antenna over many 100 m, allegedly without lingering damage. Important specifications (beam power, widening) are secret, but can be derived roughly from publications (intensity around 104 W/m2). According to models and measurements of the US Air Force Research Laboratory the pain threshold (at heating by 10 K) is reached after few seconds. My own modelling shows that the threshold for second- and third-degree burns is transcended after about the triple time. Experiment designs had to be released under the Freedom of Information Act. Here the voluntary subjects could escape behind a screen, different from a real operation. Nothing has been announced concerning mechanisms to limit heating. Deployment e.g. in Iraq encounters political reservations in the US Department of Defense. For an assessment technical, operational, legal and ethical aspects will be discussed.