SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS & RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N183-140

Description

The primary challenge in the development of any long range non-lethal munition is balancing the loss of accuracy of the round due to windage against the risk of high velocity blunt impact with the target. Parachutes and ballutes reduce the velocity of the heavy munition but lose their effectiveness as munition slows down thereby failing to mitigate the risk of impact damage to the target. A better deceleration mechanism exists and has already been evaluated by NASA through work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.SARA proposes the development of a self-braking Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) net-capture munition which employs Explosive Retro Propulsion (ERP) as the primary method of achieving rapid decelration of the munition’s control mass. Simultaneous to the arrest of the munition’s velocity an incapacitation net is deployed via ejected capture weights which envelop the target. Once enveloped, the HEMI waveform pulse power generator begins applying the incapacitation signal to the conductive branches of the net to overide electro-muscular control of the captured target.