CTMA Project Announcement: Removal of Magnetically Attached Devices (ReMAD) – Phase I
Ground vehicles and equipment are very susceptible to unwanted magnetically attached devices (MADs) due to the large amount of mild steel used in their manufacture.
New technologies need to be developed that address the issue of unwanted devices from being magnetically attached to vehicles, equipment, delivery trucks, construction equipment, taxis, limousines, building door entrances and other areas. Such unwanted devices could cause extensive property damage, enable unauthorized/forced entry, provide unwanted tracking/surveillance, or may deliver unwanted payloads resulting in human injury or death.
Most of the research in understanding magnetism has been to increase or to control it. Very little has been done to counter or turn it off.
In searching for a technology solution to address the issue of unwanted MADs, it is noted that overcoming the magnetostatic forces between the MAD and the mild steel does not require the magnet of the MAD to be saturated beyond its coercive field. An appropriately applied magnetic field (the disruptive field) with defined temporal and spatial properties in the vicinity of the attachment point will disrupt the magnetic interaction between the magnets used in the MAD and the mild steel causing the MAD to detach.
On the basis of a successful first experiment, a full project description will be developed to rationalize the details of design, construction, testing, implementation and potential commercialization of the detachment system. A table top system will be designed and fabricated under this phase to further refine the computational models to be used to further develop the technology on a larger scale.
Assuming Phase I successfully identifies and demonstrates through experimentation that a MAD detachment technology exists, it is expected the project will be able to move to the next phase (or phases) ultimately leading to multiple commercial applications.