Jürgen Altmann

Military Uses of Nanotechnology: Perspectives and Concerns

It is predicted that nanotechnology (NT) will bring revolutionary changes in many areas, with the potential for both great benefits and great risks. Developments in the military could entail specific dangers, containment of which will need special analysis and effort. Military research and development in NT is expanding rapidly. Potential future applications span all areas of warfare. Special dangers to arms control and stability may arise from new biological weapons and microrobots. For humans and society, non-medical body implants – possibly made more acceptable via the military – raise a number of problems concerning human nature. Further research is needed to find the best way to avoid possible dangers. For the near and medium term, several guidelines for limits and restrictions are suggested. As a first step, transparency and international cooperation should be improved.

Acoustic weapons - a prospective assessment

Acoustic weapons are under research and development in a few countries. Advertised as one type of non‐lethal weapon, they are said to immediately incapacitate opponents while avoiding permanent physical damage. Reliable information on specifications or effects is scarce, however. The present article sets out to provide basic information in several areas: effects of large‐amplitude sound on humans, potential high‐power sources, and propagation of strong sound. Concerning the first area, it turns out that infrasound ‐ prominent in journalistic articles ‐ does not have the alleged drastic effects on humans. At audio frequencies, annoyance, discomfort and pain are the consequence of increasing sound pressure levels. Temporary worsening of hearing may turn into permanent hearing losses depending on level, frequency, duration etc.; at very high sound levels, even one or a few short exposures can render a person partially or fully deaf. Ear protection, however, can be quite efficient in preventing these effects. Beyond hearing, some disturbance of the equilibrium, and intolerable sensations mainly in the chest can occur. Blast waves from explosions with their much higher overpressure at close range can damage other organs, at first the lungs, with up to lethal consequences. For strong sound sources, mainly sirens and whistles can be used. Powered, e.g., by combustion engines, these can produce tens of kilowatts of acoustic power at low frequencies, and kilowatts at high frequencies. Using explosions, up to megawatt power would be possible. For directed use the size of the sources needs to be on the order of 1 meter, and the required power supplies etc. have similar sizes. Propagating strong sound to some distance is difficult, however. At low frequencies, diffraction provides spherical spreading of energy, preventing a directed beam. At high frequencies, where a beam is possible, non‐linear processes deform sound waves to a shocked, saw‐tooth form, with unusually high propagation losses if the sound pressure is as high as required for marked effects on humans. Achieving sound levels which would produce aural pain, equilibrium problems, or other profound effects seems unachievable at ranges above about 50 m for meter‐size sources. Inside buildings, the situation is different, especially if resonances can be exploited. Acoustic weapons would have much less drastic consequences than the recently banned blinding laser weapons. On the other hand, there is a greater potential of indiscriminate effects due to beam spreading. Because in many situations acoustic weapons would not offer radically improved options for military or police, in particular if opponents use ear protection, there may be a chance for preventive limits. Since acoustic weapons could come in many forms for different applications, and because blast weapons are widely used, such limits would have to be graduated and detailed.

1H-14N cross-relaxation in trinitrotoluene - a step toward improved landmine detection

Motivated by the lack of efficient detection techniques for metal-free trinitrotoluene (TNT) containing landmines, 1 H– 14 N cross-relaxation experiments on TNT have been performed using field-cycling spectroscopy in an electronically switchable volume coil. Using 1 H NMR detection (indirect method), the 14 N quadrupole spectra in several small (about 0.5 g) TNT samples of different producers are determined. The experiment is considered as a step toward a double resonance TNT landmine detection scheme using surface coils.

Acoustic–seismic detection and classification of military vehicles—developing tools for disarmament and peace-keeping

Abstract Acoustic and seismic signals of military vehicles passing between two newly-developed sensor stations separated by about 100 m distance have been measured. Five tracked and five wheeled vehicles drove with seven speeds in both directions on four lanes. Rms values rose above background at distances of several 100 m for tanks, 60–80 m for a medium truck, and 40–50 m for a light van. By processing the acoustic and seismic maxima together, tracked and wheeled vehicles were separated correctly in 94% of the passes. An algorithm for detecting lines and harmonic series in acoustic spectra worked for eight vehicles. For vehicle-type recognition, learning-vector quantisation was used, working on the relative powers of the first 15 harmonics. This was successful in 95–98% of the tracked-vehicle passes and 69–95% of the wheeled-vehicle passes. These experiences and results suggest that sensor monitoring of control lines is feasible.

Medium-Range Localisation of Aircraft via Triangulation

Abstract In the framework of acoustic and seismic monitoring of airports for verifying disarmament or peace-keeping agreements, the propagation of sound emitted by aircraft close to the ground was investigated. The sound of taking-off, landing, and overflying aircraft was used to locate them by means of two 3-dimensional microphone arrays consisting of 4 microphones each and placed at a mutual distance of 150 m at 146 m to the runway centre. The base-length of the microphone arrays was 1.6 and 3.4 m. The varying propagation time of the sound from the source to the different sensors was determined by a cross correlation of the signals with a time resolution of 0.18 and 0.36 ms. Possible ambiguities due to periodic behaviour of the signals could be excluded: the dominant frequencies of the propeller-driven aircraft (

Armed military robots: editorial

The four editors of this special issue met in Sheffield, UK in September 2009, one electronically, after reading each other’s papers and discovering that they shared concerns about military plans to develop armed unmanned systems, in particular autonomous ones. Concerns about peace and international stability exist with all such systems, remotely controlled or autonomous. The latter are robot weapons that once launched will select and engage targets without further human intervention. These had been appearing in all of the US roadmaps for all of the US forces since the early 2000s and there had been no international discussion amongst state actors at that time about the ethical, humanitarian and human rights issues that they would create. Although we had different as well as shared concerns, we all felt that something needed to be done. This led Altmann, Asaro, Sharkey and Sparrow to found the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) with a very specific mission statement:

Verification of arms reductions

Anybody concerned about the maintenance of peace in our world, and in prospects of reaching agreements on arms control and disarmament, is bound to be interested in one of the key pre-conditions for related international treaties: the verification of compliance with such treaties. This book presents an exposition of developments in science and practice in international verification. It contains an account of the experience with new practical results of scientific research, devoted to solving verification problems in areas where agreements have not yet been concluded. Among the topics covered are: INF Treaty, nuclear test ban, control of mobile missiles, fissile material, demilitarization of space, stability and reduction of conventional forces, and a ban on chemical weapons.

Non-lethal weapons technologies--the case for independent scientific analysis.

Various technologies have been proposed for non‐lethal weapons (NLW), some of them credible, or at least plausible, but strong claims were made for others without evidence or references. Five such technologies are examined. For the chemical and biological examples, detailed information is lacking but the diminishing number of such claims over time and general scientific knowledge suggest that fulfilment of the promises is improbable. For acoustic weapons, a detailed study found that many of the claims are plainly untrue. In this case, even wrong values for physiological thresholds were presented. Civil and military NLW programmes in the USA put their main emphasis on simple, short‐term technologies rather than exotic ones. In order to avoid dangers arising from unrealistic promises, the concept of preventive arms control should be applied to NLW. Its first step is a scientific analysis, investigating the new weapons, the propagation of their effects and the effect on the targets. Such detailed studies are needed for each proposed NLW technology.

Acoustic-Seismic Detection of Ballistic-Missile Launches for Cooperative Early Warning of Nuclear Attack

In order to fill gaps in Russian early-warning systems, sensors can be deployed cooperatively near the silos of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would sense a launch and would transmit continuously the information that no launch has occurred. The extremely loud launch noise propagates to kilometers and can be detected passively in all weather conditions by the induced ground motion. Buried seismic sensors minimize the intrusion and disturbance above the ground. Considerations of the propagation and acoustic-seismic transfer, as well as potential other sources of strong sound or ground motion, lead to the recommendation that acceleration sensors should be deployed at 0.1–1 km from each silo. Arrays of three sensors allow to estimate the azimuth and elevation of the source, improving discrimination from, e.g., overflying jet aircraft. The time course of signal amplitude, its maximum, and spectral characteristics provide additional characteristics to recognize a launch and other source types. One station would cost below

Dem Missbrauch von Naturkräften entgegentreten — Naturwissenschaftliche Forschung für Abrüstung und Frieden

50,000 so that all 800 ICBM silos of the USA and Russia can be covered at around