"Novel" receiver to protect electronics against electromagnetic pulse attack

(Credit: Sandia)

A Malibu, CA company is developing a new system to protect military communication gear from high-power microwave weapons, nuclear blast generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and the mythic, directed-energy "e-bomb".

One nuclear airburst can unleash the EMP equivalent to 100,000 volts per square centimeter, frying computer, radar and communication equipment within hundreds of miles. It's possible to protect electronic circuitry from EMP with something called a Faraday cage, or covering it up with 1 inch mesh, grounded, copper chicken wire as they've done with FEMA headquarters; problem is-nothing gets out either, which defeats the purpose when it comes to radio transmitters.

HRL Laboratories, LLC landed the government contract to design, test, and develop a "novel" receiver based on an innovative front end meant to protect electronic components from "over as large a fractional bandwidth as feasible".

Known as the Electromagnetic Pulse-tolerant Microwave Receiver Front-end, or EMPiRe, the program aims to produce a microwave receiver capable of surviving and operating in high energy electromagnetic environments, while maintaining high sensitivity, bandwidth and range, according to DARPA, which is funding the three-part, four year effort.

It does this by sensing incoming electrical fields through a high-performance, microwave photonic link and then providing a microwave-modulated optical signal to the shielded receiver, according to HRL.

"This front end will be designed to have wider bandwidth than existing technology and will achieve a much higher concentration of electromagnetic fields," said Dr. James Schaffner, HRL program manager. "The thermal effects of a high-energy attack will be insignificant because our sensor head absorbs negligible radio-frequency power."

This is good news for military commo jocks, but leaves your widescreen and factory installed GPS vulnerable to Goldeneye/Ocean's Eleven style electromagnetic pulse bomb attacks and even sun flares. Waddayawant? Call your congressman.

[silenthorn]

What a Volt per square centimeter measure? Do you mean Volt per centimeter (measure of electric field), or a Watt per square centimeter (measure of intensity)? I assume the author is trying to represent electric field, since a high electric field can cause insulation (like air) to break down and an arc to form (think Jacob's ladder). This is what causes electronic devices to fail.

The high electric field is accompanied by a high intensity, but it is really the electric field that does the damage.

[UITD]

What good is it if you cant protect much MORE FRAGILE, skin/flesh/organs, of humans, who rely on that equipment?

[mgallutia]

The point of protecting computer, radar, and communications equipment from an EMP attack is that a single nuclear weapon, delivered, for example, via a missile fired from a ship off the shore of the U.S., could send the U.S. back into the 1800's, and leave 300,000,000 million people to fend for themselves without the technological means we now enjoy. It takes very little imagination to grasp the magnitude of the human suffering which would result.

[alegr]

Well, other information says that the pulse amplitude is up to 100 kV/m, not per centimeter (or "square centemeter"). Note that air breaks at 30 kV/cm (3000 kV/m).