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The article says the Phaser uses a combination of EMP and high-powered microwaves. Are those meant to be different in some way?
by darkerside 10y ago
The article says the Phaser uses a combination of EMP and high-powered microwaves. Are those meant to be different in some way?
- Florin_Andrei 10y agoEMP is a burst of noise. You could make it with an explosion, or via the undisciplined discharge of a large capacitor into a semi-resonant circuit. It pumps energy into a broad spectrum. It's hard to contain it in a very specific direction, although simple reflection techniques, etc, could be used. High-powered microwaves are like a microwave oven, or a radar, except more powerful I guess. Could be focused in a specific direction with ease. It usually works at one main frequency, or a small set of well-defined frequencies.
- ridgeguy 10y agoEMP, or pulses, are broadband. Take the Fourier transform of a short (~ 1 nsec) pulse and you'll see significant energy up through several GHz. In the EW environment, broadband pulse radiation can couple to slots, wires penetrating a Faraday shield, joints in the Faraday shield - really, a wide range of electrical discontinuities that act as receiving antennas if you hit them with the right wavelength. This lets you put HV pulses into sensitive circuits without knowing much about the target. Pulse countermeasures require more expensive engineering and fab. The system described may also have a continuous (microwave) capability for threats they know something about. If you know that $yourfavoritedrone has particular electrical resonances in its antennas, motor leads, or whatever, you could emit on those resonances and induce high voltage on those structures. Anyway, that's what I think they mean - this is both a pulse and CW emitter.