Because rebel Iraqi forces have been surprisingly effective in rigging together improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from things like garage door openers and cellphones (and, you know, bombs). The Pentagon isn’t having it—they’re spending no end of money to make sure we’ve got something more effective to seek-and-destroy them than shooting everything that looks like it might blow up. According to DefenseTech, researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Dahlgren Laboratory are working on something called NIRF (Neutralizing Improvised explosive devices with RF). The NIRF system produces a short-range microwave blast designed to fry IEDs’ electronics. It won’t make them totally safe—there will still be explosives attached and all—but it’s a lot better than trying to explode them all.
JAMMERS, MICROWAVE BLASTS TARGET I.E.D.S [DefenseTech]
