Army Seeks Drone "Human-Immobilizing High-Intensity Spotlight"

U.S. Army researchers want to fit a human-immobilizing searchlight to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to create a remotely operated or autonomous non-lethal weapon system to help insert and extract fighting forces from enemy-held areas. Officials of the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate at Fort Eustis Va., are looking to Peak Beam Systems Inc. in Edgemont, Pa., to modify the company's hand-held Maxa Beam high-intensity light for aircraft use. The Maxa Beam system is a Xenon based searchlight that can be pulsed with a unique modulation strobe effect that results in immobilization to those within the beam. The super-bright light features a programmable strobe function that will immediately disable and disorient those within its beam. The light can shift from normal power to high power or strobe, and can spread the beam from a 1-degree spot to a 40-degree flood, and can vary its strobe rate.