Incapacitating light beam: The suspect is going for his gun, and the police officer doesn’t want to shoot. The founders of a company called Genesis Illumination hope police officers will soon be reaching for a StunRay instead of a gun or Taser. They claim their newly patented device can render an assailant helpless with a brief flash of high-intensity light. It works by overloading the neural networks connected to the retina, saturating the target’s world in a blinding pool of white light. “It’s the inverse of blindness—the technical term is a loss of contrast sensitivity,” says Todd Eisenberg, the engineer who invented the device. “The typical response is for the person to freeze. Law enforcement can easily walk up and apprehend [the suspect].”

The device consists of a 75-watt lamp, combined with optics that collect and focus the visible light into a targeted beam, which can be aimed like a flashlight. Recovery time ranges from “seconds to 20 minutes,” Eisenberg says. “It’s very analogous to walking from a very bright room into a very dark room.”

The inventors say the StunRay has a number of advantages over taser guns, which work best within a range of 12 to 15 feet. The StunRay can be effective from as far away as 150 feet. And whereas Tasers can cause cardiac arrest, the StunRay is reasonably safe. One downside is that the target must be facing the light for it to work. But “if the target has turned and is running away, the objectives of stopping an aggressive behavior or avoiding a potentially lethal confrontation have still been met,” Eisenberg notes.

This article was originally published with the title Patent Watch.

9 Comments

1. 1. JohnMHammer 09:22 AM 4/1/11

   One of Tom Clancy's heroes uses a device like this.

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2. 2. promytius 10:29 AM 4/1/11

   Law enforcement won't warm to it; they like fatal stuff; less paperwork. Sounds too easy to overcome (single eye cover would do) and too easy to zap yourself from reflective surfaces. Even TASERs are abused now, so I see no need to spend more money on marginal technology. How about patenting the idea of legalize drugs? That will save billions and billions and release police from using hardcore tactics on soft crime and allow them to return to protecting the public instead of arresting good people behaving badly.

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3. 3. oldvic 12:11 PM 4/1/11

   This is interesting. Might it work against agressive animals (dogs, bears, cougars and such)?

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4. 4. solspot 07:28 PM 4/1/11

   Wouldn't criminals be more likely to use this on their victims? or against the Police? Just saying, any weapon can be used the other way. BTW: it sounds a lot like my high intensity portable headlight that I got in the local store last year; just a longer range. The battery doesn't last very long.

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5. 5. jtdwyer 01:23 AM 4/2/11

   I'd guess repeated usage would produce some kind of potentially permanent eye damage - something that might occur out on the streets.

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6. 6. Nehmo 09:33 PM 4/3/11

   You're moving a bit off topic, but I agree. Stop the ridiculous and vicious imprisoning of poor people who do some drug without a prescription.
   Betty Ford was an addict, and they made her a saint.
   Anyway, regarding the super flash light, I want one to use on the cops when they stop me. Before this, I was planning on using a plain ol' green laser.

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7. 7. marco-sum 02:16 PM 4/4/11

   Regarding solspot concern about the battery durability, I guess they've already devised some sort of a nano nuke reactor to put on it.

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8. 8. JDahiya in reply to marco-sum 08:22 AM 4/7/11

   marco-sum, Naah, you just need to lug the 15 metre AC wire behind you. Then there is no problem at all, unless of course there is an outage that day. Then you will be, er, powerless.
   
   But, stop a sec, is this even real? The dateline makes me suspicious, but then I philosophically suppose real advances can get reported on any day, even April 1.

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9. 9. MrGeorge 12:36 AM 6/1/11

   At close range, this would also temporarily blind the officer also. Duh! I thought of putting a high intensity halogen lamp on the rear of my car, to blind tailgaters. But the ramifications would not be too good.

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