Non-Lethal Munitions for Defeating Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)

The US Army has the requirement for a vehicle-mounted and/or man-portable Low Frequency Currents Injected in the Ground (LFCIG). technology that can reliably pre-detonate, render unusable or disable buried Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). Further, this technology must allow operation from a safe-standoff distance from an IEDs inadvertent detonation without collateral damage to Army personnel or critical equipment. GRA has uncovered, researched and successfully demonstrated one such technology, in its recently completed SBIR Phase I .This employed Radio Frequency (RF) technology injects high power; low frequency radio waves into the ground to disable or pre-detonate buried IEDs by coupling energy into the buried IEDs detonation electronic components, blasting caps and/or lead-in wires. In this SBIR, GRA developed and experimentally tested a unique, scalable RF source and a unique dipole applicator antenna that generated and focused The overall objective of this Phase II SBIR proposal is to design a vehicle-mounted and/or man-portable LFCIG counter-IED system, capable of disabling or pre-detonating buried IED devices at 10m stand-off ranges without producing collateral damage to remote, friendly electronic equipment or personnel. This objective will be achieved by delivering 30-100 mJ of RF energy to a buried IED devices lead wires within the electrical blasting caps thermal equilibration time of 10 ms.