logowill england :: Jamming Laser and LIDAR



Jamming LIDAR

I originally wrote this back at the end of 2002 during a discussion on jamming police RADAR and other speed detection equipment. Jamming RADAR is illegal, because you would have to broadcast RF energy, and the FCC frowns on that.

Jamming LIDAR (Laser speed guns) is quite possible, legal and many of you are already doing it. Jamming lidar is not illegal under FCC rules since they don't regulate this part of the spectrum, but most jurisdictions have a law which makes it illegal to "interfere with the duties of a police officer." So don't do it knowingly!

LIDAR works on getting a light reflecting back from the bike. The light is in the infrared spectrum. I believe it was Car and Driver that did a test many years ago to see how running headlights affects the distance at which the LIDAR can get a lock on you. The determined that running the high beams would help a bit, but for real protection, you needed to run aux lighting. Like the PIAA and Hella lights many of you already have. With a 6" aux light mounted on the front of their test car, they cut the distance to lock down to a couple hundred feet.

However, it may be objectionable to other drivers, and quite obvious that you're up to something when you are running your 110 watt PIAA flamethrowers during the day. Thus, you need an IR Pass-thru filter. You can order one from a scientific supply shop for many dollars, or you can make one by using stage lighting filters. This webpage: http://www.amasci.com/amateur/irgoggl.html details the exact filter colors and had graphs showing the light transmission of the filters. Build a simple jig over the front of the PIAA lights, drop the filters in during the day, run em on all the time, and bingo! You have an IR LIDAR jammer.

Now, I'm not sure how well the filter will hold up to the elements, or the heat of the 110 watt lamp, so YMMV.

This (theoretically) would work best with a good laser detector to tell you when you are getting painted, so you can verify that your speed is (as usual) within the limits.

And, to address the first statement, will LED's work? Nope. You'd need many more watts of IR power than the LED could ever output. The calculations are shown on the LIDAR FAQ at: http://www.mr2.com/TEXT/FAQonLidar.html


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Created December 12, 2002      ::      Updated Thursday, September 06 2018 @ 01:18am