Effectiveness Testing and Evaluation of Non-Lethal Weapons for Crowd Management
Abstract
The Target Behavioral Response Laboratory (TBRL) has developed methods of quantitative testing and evaluation of non-lethal weapons (NLWs) against intended targets in crowd scenarios. These methods include appropriate experimental design and data collection, standardized quantitative metrics, data processing and statistical analyses to evaluate relative non-lethal weapons performance, irrespective of weapon type, platform, or energy. The following results from controlled laboratory experimentation are a demonstration of the depth of analyses that result from these laboratory methods for the testing and evaluation of NLWs. To our knowledge, this is the first reporting of quantitative metrics and statistical analyses of non-lethal weapons performance in a crowd scenario. While the results of this specific experiment are not meant to be broadly interpreted as relative effectiveness of stimuli types or device per se, when applied to fielded and candidate devices, these methods will yield comprehensible and actionable information on relative effectiveness. These methods may provide guidelines for testing and evaluation of NLWs. Moreover the results indicate that: 1) controlled laboratory testing of non-lethal weapons against intended targets is possible, 2) quantitative metrics on crowd response to non-lethal weapons fire can be derived, 3) standard quantitative metrics on crowd response to non-lethal weapons can be derived regardless of weapon type, platform, or energy, 4) quantitative metrics on crowd response to non-lethal weapons can be subjected to standard statistical analyses that yield evaluations of performance, 5) the results of these statistical analyses can be used to evaluate and compare the performance of non-lethal weapons, 6) these procedures are easily repeatable for effectiveness testing and evaluation of existing and candidate non-lethal weapons...
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA616289
Entities
People
- Elizabeth Sibolboro Mezzacappa
- Gordon Cooke
- John Riedener
- Kenneth R. Short
Organizations
- United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center