Active denial technology refers to the use of microwave radiation to produce a sudden burning feeling in the targeted person or persons. The intention of the technology is to encourage a change in behavior or location by the targets. The U.S. Military employs active denial technology in the Active Denial System developed by the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate led by the U.S. Marine Corps with the intended purpose of providing a non-lethal option for military forces to disperse crowds and to determine hostile intent.
How Active Denial Technology Works
Active denial technology works by transmitting a beam of microwave rays at ranges of up to 550 yards or 500 meters from a large rectangular dish. The dish has been demonstrated while mounted on top of a Humvee vehicle and can penetrate clothing to heat the skin of people in the path of the beam quickly to 50-54 degrees Centigrade with a skin penetration depth of 0.5 mm. Test volunteers have described the beam as feeling as though the body is blasted with heat from an extremely hot oven and is unbearable. To date, no permanent damage to the human body has been attributed to the technology.
Can Active Denial Technology Be Countered?
Since electromagnetic radiation is not able to penetrate a conductor, there has been discussion on how this fact can be leveraged to defeat active denial technology. In your home microwave, for example, the metal mesh on the front door keeps the microwave radiation from escaping the unit. As a result, the current open-source conjecture is that a wire-mesh shield can be used to mitigate some of the effects of the ADS, however, the shielding would need to be much tighter than found in the common microwave due to the 95 GHz wavelength of the weapon systems transmission. A standard microwave transmission is at a lower 2450 MHz. Defensive shielding would also need to account for protection of the face, neck, and feet to be fully effective, however, the mobility of any effective shielding system would make it appear more feasible for incorporation into a vehicle than individual protection.