Toward a Test Protocol for Conducted Energy Weapons

Conducted Energy Weapons (CEWs), such as those manufactured by TASER International Inc., are seeing increased use by law enforcement agencies as a less lethal force option; but, at the same time, these weapons are also seeing an increased level of concern in terms of their safety of use. In order to enable consistent evaluation of CEW performance, a systematic protocol for testing the electrical output of such weapons is required. In this paper, we propose a test specification for CEWs, designed to calculate the key performance and electrical safety parameters. The weapon is fired into a specified load, and current or voltage data are acquired, from which a set of electrical parameters are calculated and recorded. The protocol is based on experience of testing 6000 CEWs in the labs affiliated with the authors. This test protocol is designed to enable systematic testing, evaluation and research on CEW’s, including identification of weapons which are out of specification, determination of changes in weapon characteristics over time, and evaluation of weapons post-incident. Based on the proposed test protocol, we evaluate and report on electrical output produced by 208 X26 and 128 M26 TASER weapons. Results are shown in terms of proposed summary parameters and in terms of manufacturer’s performance specifications.