A High-Power Electrically Driven Impulsive Acoustic Source for Target Effects Experiments and Area-Denial Applications

A variety of acoustic sources are being developed and tested for possible application as special weapons for use in scenarios such as crowd control and area denial that call for less-than-lethal force application. These sources include devices that generate acoustic energy by repetitive combustion or detonation of a fuel-oxidizer mixture. These devices are attractive for development as fieldable weapons because they offer the advantages of simplicity of design and very high-intensity acoustic output from relatively small packages powered by common chemical field. The acoustic signals produced by these devices are typically repetitive impulsive waveforms sin%similar to those generated by explosives and are characterized by an initial short-risetime, high positive sound pressure level (SPL) that falls roughly exponentially to a lower-level negative-pressure undershoot. The duration of the positive-pressure phase or pulse is typically on the order of a millisecond. In an effort to deliver significant average acoustic power and possibly excite low-frequency resonances or other nonaural response modes in a target, some of these impulsive combustion sources (ICS's) generate a train of impulses at rates on file order of 10 Hz.