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Meet the missile that wipes out everything electric

By | October 24, 2012, 8:46 AM PDT

Ever wonder what it would be like to go without electricity, apart from the odd five-minute power cut? Ask Boeing — the firm is working on a missile that could completely wipe out all of your electronics.

Boeing are developing what is dubbed the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) — a missile that slams targets underneath with microwaves which can take out everything electrical, from your coveted iPad to critical city power systems.

The aircraft and defense company recently tested CHAMP at the Utah Test and Training Range in the Western Utah Desert. The first target, a two-story building, was filled with computers. After being hit with a high-powered microwave pulse, every single PC died — as did all the television cameras set up to record the experiment.

Every computer in the building was disrupted and went black.

Every computer in the building was disrupted and went black.

“This technology marks a new era in modern-day warfare,” said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works. “In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive.”

The team hopes this kind of missile could be used in warfare not only to disrupt critical electronic systems, but to cause such damage with little or no collateral damage — something which may become a huge leap in modern non-lethal warfare.

Currently, the multi-year project is far from being suitable for military use.

Image credit: Boeing

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Charlie Osborne

About Charlie Osborne

Charlie Osborne is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

Charlie Osborne

Charlie Osborne

Contributing Editor

Charlie Osborne is a freelance journalist and graphic designer based in London. In addition to SmartPlanet, she also writes the iGeneration column for business technology website ZDNet. She holds degrees in medical anthropology from the University of Kent.

Follow her on Twitter.

Charlie Osborne

Charlie Osborne

Charlie Osborne does not have financial holdings that would influence how or what she covers.

She writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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+1 Vote
+ -
Nice toy,
but the enemy of the day has already discovered aluminum foil and glue. A few large-head roofing nails to tack/contact the sections together and the room is cheaply and decently proof from that overpriced flying jammer. I think their stuff would be safe. At which point, I suppose the missile could always be flown into the target.. There are also metal buildings, the bolt-up kind. I have a 30x30 one in use for a workshop. Cellphones don't work in there for voice or data. This missile would likely do nothing to the computer inside there. Hey, can I have my tax money for this back?
Posted by opcom
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
Your PC Is Not the Target
... more like collateral damage. Think of the disruption in your community if even 10% of the computers and other electronics controlling traffic signals, HVAC, utilities, medical equipment, ignition and other systems in vehicles, police/military radios, telephony, etc. etc. went down at the same time. For that matter, think of the economic impacts of replacing/repairing all that stuff in the aftermath.

Critical military systems have been hardened for years, but against the massive electromagnetic pulse associated with atomic bombs. Not sure if the same protection would work against this attack.
Posted by mdwalls
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
EMP
This is just a Drone mounted EMP generator. The Army has had a few that were tank mounted for a couple of years. There is also a version that supposedly causes minor skin burns which inflicts pain, but doesn't kill.

They are mostly useless for real combat. The Military has been using 'hardened' equipment for close to a Decade now.

Consumer grade electronics are not protected, normally, but, they can be. If the power supplies have a few capacitors along with small surge protectors, the induced transients can be safely shunted to ground.

As a previous poster observed, a shielded room can reduce the effect. Scientists have been doing this sort of shielding for many years.
Posted by YetAnotherBob
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
I Can't Find . . .
. . . where it says this is a government contract in the article.
Posted by Gr8Music
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Missle Not Effective on Terrorists
An expensive toy like that described in the article might be useful if we ever went to war against Germany again, but terrorists like Al Qaeda primarily rely on low-tech weapons. Worst case scenario, it would blow out the terrorist's disposable cell-phone & he'd need to pick up a new one the next time he returns to base. Unless, of course, he took the trivial precaution of wrapping it in aluminum foil, then plastic wrap, then another layer of aluminum foil thus creating a cheap & easy Faraday cage (similar to opcom's posting). A few seconds to wrap the phone & a few seconds to unwrap when the phone is needed.
US military expense - millions per missile, terrorist counter-measure expense - a few pennies worth of common household materials. The same counter-measure could be applied by terrorists to other moderately high-tech materiel, e.g. an anti-tank or anti-aircraft shoulder launched missile -- just remove the sensitive electronics & double-wrap. Or just wrap the entire warhead, it's not like aluminum foil is all that expensive.
Posted by bradhansen@...
2nd Nov
+1 Vote
+ -
not new tech
Tech is not new but the deliver system is. Had this **** in the 70s in the navy.
Posted by sarai1313@...
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Microwaves are killers at any power level.
Let us face it!
We live in a world gone MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction).
The only prudent action, is to make the best of our days.
After all December 24th is fast approaching.
Posted by FxGreek
25th Oct
-6
Old stuff
Posted by SmartPlanet.2CV  |  Below your threshold
0 Votes
+ -
Missile Wiping Out Everything Electric
With the implementation of the wireless smart grid and that vulnerability, aluminum foil won't work. The smart grid is being deployed for what is deemed convenience and it is much cheaper to radiate everything instead of pulling wires or completing construction.

This article refers to humans not being hurt? That could be true if every cell in out unprotected body wasn't electrical so it will shut down the human grid as well.. The coverage of the EMF field will affect everything biological, building codes and so much more.

We all live on the planet and rely on the basic same resources. We better smarten up. Solar storms or EMFs are concerns for taking out satellites while our atmosphere protects us, we aren't supposed to create EMF storms within the atmosphere, it damages all life.
Posted by Thermoguy
25th Oct
+2 Votes
+ -
Just another waste of taxpayer money as USUAL!!!!
Perhaps its time to stop DESTROYING and start building. I guess that concept is about 10,000 yrs into the future for the warmongering psychopaths running everything now.
Posted by Reality Bites
25th Oct
+2 Votes
+ -
Paranoia
Something wrong with the species ( present company excepted, of course ) to behave much the same as cave men. Only now the clubs are high tech .
One would think that the trillions spent on feeding paranoia would be better spent on fighting disease, environment, hunger, and so on.
Just dreaming .......
Posted by da philster
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
EMP hardened equipment
Does it work against EMP hardened sites & equipment?

I'd be a LOT more impressed if it was killing military-grade Electro-Magnetic Pulse hardened equipment & facilities.

Or do they not bother with that any more? I hear Humvees use stock (diesel) electronic fuel injection. . . And do they assume that because the US doesn't bother with it that no one else does?
Posted by CodeCurmudgeon
25th Oct
+2 Votes
+ -
How it's Assembled
Hardening is done in several ways. First, there is shielding. This means surrounding the vulnerable electronics with metal. The metal is then grounded to the same ground plane that the equipment uses. This doesn't eliminate the pulse, but it does reduce the effects. What this means is that if the power supplied to the equipment and the reference power ground for the equipment both see the same pulse, the pulse is canceled out for the electronics.

Next, a surge arrester built into the equipment can short to ground, and have the same effect at a smaller scale.

Finally, the larger the internal resistance between circuit elements, the larger the surge needed to damage those elements.

Unfortunately, modern electronics keeps going to lower and lower voltage levels. This means that the difference between the EMP and the insulation level in the equipment is narrowing.

Unlike what the foolish poster SmartPlanet.2CV above says, there is nothing from this subject by Mr. Romney, or Mr. Obama. Neither probably realizes the physics involved. It also means that unlike the opinion of .2cv, older computers are less vulnerable than newer models, though, if the pulse is released close enough, old systems are still vulnerable.

As an Engineer, I have been designing systems to reduce the effects of this sort of thing for over 20 years now. So have a lot of others. Utilities are quite aware of the problem. Solar flares and lightning have the same sorts of effects.

This isn't new or different from what has been going on for the last 80 years now.
Posted by YetAnotherBob
Updated - 25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Research Links on Faraday Cage
I have been trying to find links to university or government studies and research on building tested Faraday cages to protect not only from EMP's but X class solar flairs such as the 1859 flair, but have not been successful. Any info. is greatly appreciated.
Posted by Saiga1
28th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
Microwave missiles
Waging wars are hardwired into us humans. Periodically we have to carry out this process of culling a fews souls to make room for future souls.

Wars without collateral damage would sort of defeat the purpose. The irony is that death is the final arbiter in some lives to be.
Posted by premdas67@...
Updated - 25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
waste of money
won't work - back in the 70s I worked on a gadget that sent a fairly narrow (hence concentrated) beam of microwaves at electronics from up to 35 feet away to 'interrogate' it and detect internal signals from the backscatter. The peak power, over less than 8 square feet, was about 300W (so about 37W/sq.ft) . Never blew anything up. Never damaged the electronics. Now, I'm willing to admit that if you can get the frequency right and concentrate much more power in the right part of the spectrum, so that it will actually penetrate to the right parts, you can damage _unshielded_ electronics, but you will also damage the eyesight (and more) of anyone in the area, and the device won't work in every case because of the frequency-specific nature of the penetration and target sensitivity to the incoming radiation. If I were an American taxpayer, I'd be asking for my money back, and demanding to know why the people placing procurement and development contracts aren't engineers themselves. They have been sold a pup. This idea will never work consistently, as it depends on too many uncontrolled factors. It cannot be depended upon. Hence, it's a dead duck.
Posted by RHambeau
25th Oct
-1 Votes
+ -
Re:waste of money
Technology has moved at great speed and the technology of 70s and 80s are the basis of these development. The sole problem is danger to human life and animal life as the EM waves will damage sensitive tissue and "eyes" is just one of them. Didn't the US commit the worst ever war crime by detonating the atom bomb over Japan during WW-II? What happened to the ethics of Americans when they killed a million over 2 days alone? You have already mentioned the destructive power of microwave radiation way back in the 70s. Today we are subjected to worse kind of radiations right from the kitchen appliances, WiFi routers, DTH to mobile phones. You can check out the degeneration, other terrible effects on human tissues caused by microwave radiation at the nearest medical hospital or University. The tissues of the eyes, the heart, lungs, kidneys, joints, etc have suddenly become fragile like never before. These tissue would normally degrade after 55 to 65 years of age but the same is observed in people well below their 50s or even below their 30s. The other sure symptom of exposure to radiation is the fact that people in their 20s and early 30s suffer from hypertension, bad eye sight, breast cancer and so on.
Posted by jamini.padhi@...
Updated - 25th Oct
-1 Votes
+ -
Little or no collateral damage!
I like how they always say there will be "little or no collateral damage". Quite frankly I'm tired of being lied to. It's just BS! Just like your home smart meter does no damage! Loss of memory and a dozen diseases it could cause. Not on my home. What about all the dolphins and whales that suspiciously wash up on the beaches just after the government has tested one of these beauties! Mankind needs to evolve to a higher plane or face extinction. I can only pray that December 21, 2012 brings the dawning of a new age. I won't probably be around, but for my kids.
Posted by foolmeonce
25th Oct
+2 Votes
+ -
Futuristic Gun Control?
It's a good thing we haven't seen widespread deployment of "safety" systems for firearms based on user ID systems. Think of the opportunities for unilateral disarmament if some of the more fanatic gun grabbers got hold of a system like this, if these types of systems become mandatory.
Posted by mdwalls
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
Didn't look like the computers were connected to a UPS...
I'm wondering if it just threw a breaker or if it actually fried the electronics and how bad did it fry them... Also, what would this do to shielded buildings? Most modern building are shielded. How did they get footage of the computers going down before the camera went down? Why would they use an electronic camera to film the result of a device that destroys electronics? There is so much about this that makes no sense at all.
Posted by i8thecat4
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
Why Announce It??
If anyone had such techno weapons, would they want to announce it where their opponents could see it and do likewise? I think not. DOH!
Posted by mail@...
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
why announce?
were it not for announcing nuclear armaments and the dangers thierin, we would have destroyed the world decades ago. Announce can be a good thing. Even Dr. Seuss knew that. Have you read "The Butter Battle Book"?
Posted by llandau@...
26th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Really...
If so why did the camera's not 'blank out' at the exact same moment that the computers did? If that was the case you would not see the computers going down, everything would have 'gone black' at once. Maybe only some of the cameras went down? I suppose that the cameras or at least some were better protected then others, because when the microwaves 'hit' the cameras should have ceasedtransmission, and should have just gone black together and you would not have seen the computers go down. Is the problem with the reporting of the event or ???
Posted by josephhyde@...
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
could it be
that they realized the computers went down when they checked things after the attack? The article above never stated that the cameras filmed anything. only that the cameras went down as well as the computers.
Posted by llandau@...
26th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Maser???
If you can keep the beam very narrow, you can penetrate farther. I would suspect that this device is a Maser, giving a very low beam spread, and that the frequency is selected for Silicon, and close to the clock frequency of the computers. That would then amplify the clock signal, and might then increase the leakage current in the silicon chips to short out many gates.

I would be very surprised if this device has a very wide field of effect. The power yield is just too small. To effect the entire building, the power pulse mush have destroyed the missile.

Also, this is probably a DARPA experiment. I doubt that these will ever be deployed, except in very limited situations.
Posted by YetAnotherBob
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Missile that wipes out electronic
Why so many skeptics? Surely they don't seem to have any knowledge of current R&D as well as physics. Microwave imaging from satellite has been around for sometime. These microwave hasn't been used for destruction due to limited power out there in space on board the satellite. This front is progressing slowly but steadily and in about 5 or 10 years the US and Russia will have the ability to destroy land target from space. The killer satellite has already been tested while they successfully destroyed satellites in space. Cruise missiles need real time terrain imaging to evade detection as well as to seek out their target before homing in. In this case the logical and elementary problem too is the power. A sufficiently powerful EM wave is required to damage silicon chips by the cruise missile gliding at mach 3 to 4 as they will effectively engage target for a fraction of a second yet destroy them - scientists have been working on this for a long time now. Every other day one or the other development takes them closer to their goal and Boeing is the first to report the development due to business as well as political compulsions. Boeing has developed a working model which has a power supply to meet the requirements of an on board high power microwave amplifier. As the missile will glide at low altitude, unlike the satellites, they will be able to kill any system which has silicon chips and every modern system employs silicon chips. The force multipliers like gun fire locating radars, electronic systems used to make military calculation to guide short range SS missiles, night vision, etc will be sitting ducks. It is just a matter of time when these missiles will see action rendering many ground based systems useless. Another team of scientists are frantically working on developing a suitable EM wave which will blow off any type of explosives right from the ordinary gun powder to the advanced plastic explosives. This EM wave will take out ammunition in their dumps, ammunition carried by soldiers, ammunition on guns and self propelled attack systems! Once such two missiles fly by and remove their targets the real time satellite system will guide ground attack teams to move in and secure enemy territory thick and fast like 40-50 km per hour! High tech war is not far away and this will change the way war is fought forever.
Posted by jamini.padhi@...
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
EMP
This is EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) weaponry. The delivery is new, not the weapon. It can be shielded against, and All military vehicles are shielded already(no retrofitting required). Look-up neutron bombs. They we intended to do this too, just in a much more dramatic way.This is more stuff that we hope never sees the light of day in real time. How useful would this be against some enemy living in the field, in huts, with no real electronics to use anyway?
Posted by garyfizer@...
25th Oct
+1 Vote
+ -
Way to go, Boeing!
That's just what the terrorists need. And will have too, now that You have developed it. Why don't You invent a device that wipes silly, stupid and dangerous ideas off of engineers' brains?
Posted by Dukhalion
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Tubes
Back to Vacuum tubes I guess!
Posted by tech_ed@...
25th Oct
+2 Votes
+ -
Another boondogle with lie attached.
A proper narrow beam microwave (which this isn't, can and has been used to stop single electronics (vehicle electronics) with minimal danger to others...but anything covering more than a few hundred feet is almost guaranteed to hurt or kil people in any urban environment.

We don't need new and novel weapons, we need new and better diplomacy.

The 'scarce' resources which we squabble about aren't scarce, and haven't truly been scarce since we achieved the ability to reach space. The one truly limiting resource is energy, and once we achieved orbit, that limit was effectively eliminated...if we had actually wanted to do so. But no, those in control who amass power and control, couldn't share and refuse to admit that we aren't really short of anything we need, if we were willing to actually go after it.

We use a tiny fraction of 1% of the Earth's resources and an insignificant portion of the resources (including energy) available to us in the rest of the Solar System.

Instead of sharing resources and building community, we create weapons and destruction in order to line the pockets of those in control with more power in the form of resources which belong to all life of the planet, and in particular that theoretical concept we call 'money,' and no currency has any value other than the fact that some group of people say that it has value.

Humans cannot survive as individuals, and we do our greatest and best works cooperatively, yet we permit our societies to be controlled by power-mad insane people, knowing that concentrated power (like almost anything concentrated) is extremely dangerous.

Where's Boeing's design for a decent, economical vehicle for Earth to LEO transport? Where's there design for space-based solar power generation stations? For large orbital industrial facilities? For better weather information and prediction equipment? For equipment to help provide housing for disaster victoms? For efficient intercontinental transport of people and freight?For efficient intra and inter urban transportation of people and goods? For better safety devices for all transportation systems? For cleaner power plants for vehicles?

We have a LOT of smart people out there, why can't we dedicate more brains and resources to solving our differences and issues through the creation of goodwill and cooperative action instead of finding increasingly better ways to destroy and control people against their will?

When will our civilization be civil? Instead of hiding our barbaric actions behind pretty facades?
Posted by wizoddg
25th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Meet the missile to paralyze the Earth.
Does anyone remember an old film called "The Day the Earth Stood Still"? Seems to be the same concept. Maybe someone got the idea from that movie.
Posted by David Traversa
26th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Lets face the real enemy
When will we understand that the major cause of insecurity is inequality? We are fighting the wrong enemy! The economic globalization is disrupting people equality and also globalizing the world problems. We should use our technology and built a smart planet searching for peoples equality, that would bring real lasting peace, not weppons, eventhough of these kind... I`m sad to read such news in this community.
Posted by ppantano
29th Oct
0 Votes
+ -
Boeing missile
Beware if you have a pacemaker...
Posted by Gilles Lord
2nd Nov
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