US Department of Defense Non-Lethal Weapons Program

The Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Technology Division

05-08-2013: Pentagon Wants ‘Human Surrogate’ for Directed Energy Weapons Testing

In its latest round of small business research proposals, the Navy announced it’s seeking a sensor-outfitted “human surrogate” for use in an array of non-lethal weapon tests. That includes ”electromagnetic radiation in the L, S, and W-bands,” noted the request for proposal. Even further, there are plans to subject the luckless mannequin to everything from noise, blast pressure, electrical currents, thermal energy, and light from flashbang grenades.

Eventually, the goal is to “quickly collect data to understand injury potential by detecting, presumably via sensor systems, the effects of various non-lethal stimuli on different parts of the human body,” Alicia Owsiak, deputy chief of the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Technology Division, tells Danger Room in a statement. The JNWLD, which manages the Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons program, is coordinating the tests. “Given that the risk of injury for a non-lethal stimuli is often influenced by hit location, the test target is envisioned to be a human surrogate with respect to internal and external anatomy.”

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The Pentagon: headquarters of U.S. Department of Defense. (1)

Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Technology Division (Pentagon)

Service-Related Non-Lethal Weapons Information:

U. S. Navy , U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff , U.S. Army , U.S. Marine Corps , U.S. Air Force , Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate , U.S. National Guard Bureau , U.S. Coast Guard , U.S. Special Operations Command

Defense contractors, private contractors:

Raytheon (ADS, Silent Guardian)

WaveBand Corporation/Sierra Nevada Corporation = MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio)

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 Refs.

1. www.wired.com/2013/05/pain-ray-dummies/