The Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response rifle (PHASR) is a prototype non-lethal laser dazzler developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Its purpose is to temporarily disorient and blind a target. Blinding laser weapons have been tested in the past, but were banned under the 1995 UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, which the United States has not signed.[1] The PHASR rifle, a low-intensity laser, can skirt this regulation, as the blinding effect is apparently temporary. It also uses a two-wavelength laser. The PHASR was developed at Kirtland Air Force Base, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate in New Mexico.
Its name is a backronym inspired by the name of the phaser, a fictional Star Trek beam weapon, and the shape of the weapon also vaguely resembles that of the phaser rifle used in the latter part of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as some of the later movies.
See also
References
- ^ "United Nations Office at Geneva". www.unog.ch. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
{{cite web}}: Text "Disarmament" ignored (help); Text "STATES PARTIES AND SIGNATORIES. STATES NOT PARTIES" ignored (help)