This is kind of farfetched, but after all it's halfbakery not fullbakery, right?

Take a typical riot gear vest and with rows of sprayers under each arm attached to a "camelpak" style container pepperspray on on the back. The vest would have what is commonly called a "suicide switch" (a type of mercury switch used as a detonator by suicide bombers, it's held vertical where the mercury can only touch one of the detonator's contacts, if they get shot and fall over, the mercury sloshes to the second contact when the switch goes horizontal and BOOM) concealed beneath its padding. Now instead of the switch detonating a bomb it releases the sprayers.

If the officer is overpowered by rioters and he falls over, in this moment of critical vulnerability a large cloud of pepperspray is released in an effort to keep the crowd away from him until he can regain his footing or his fellow officers can assist him. Of course, gas masks are a definite neccessity when using these suits.

Also, pepperspray could be substituted with CS gas or mustard gas if you live in a particularly spiteful country where you can get away with that sort of thing. Another nifty addition would be an ear-piercing alarm that goes off with the pepperspray to both ward off attackers and to alert other officers of their comrade's status.
-- scott_r_uber, Oct 25 2005

//Riot gear that senses when user is in danger and releases pepperspray cloud//

When I first read this I thought you meant this:

Rioter: Boo! Pepperspray Vest: Pssssssssssss ....

[+] anyways
-- ixnaum, Oct 25 2005


It *is* a very funny mental image to imagine this riot gear system working when an officer has no gas mask.

Heh heh.
-- BlueSapph, Oct 25 2005


I think I like [ixnaum] version better now.. but that's just because I'm mean
-- scott_r_uber, Oct 28 2005


//This is kind of farfetched, but after all it's halfbakery not fullbakery, right?//

I have some advice: never, ever start an idea with this mantra.
-- Detly, Oct 28 2005


feh, it's like my first idea ever to not get fishboned to all hell, so stop raining on my parade already [Detly] >:|
-- scott_r_uber, Nov 04 2005


yes, + because it is a cloud. ...imagining accidental release in elevator.
-- Zuzu, Nov 04 2005


obviously, it would have to have a some sort of arming device or switch.. the last thing you want is for the stocker at the police station to throw these in the back of storage and fill 3/4 of the police department with pepperspray
-- scott_r_uber, Nov 05 2005


// if they get shot and fall over, the mercury sloshes to the second contact when the switch goes horizontal and BOOM //

I always wondered why IRA suicide bombers used mercury switches instead of buttons. Thanks for explaining.

These days, it would be trivial to use an IMU instead of a mercury switch, so that it could detect that the cop actually fell down, and not trigger spuriously if a cop has to deliberately lie down, jump, etc.

(Back in 2005, the only consumer-level accelerometer I know of was the Sudden Motion Sensor in the PowerBook G4 (intended to park the HDD heads if the laptop is dropped, also used for lightsaber effects). The Nintendo Wii came out in 2006, and the entire Wiimote was the cheapest and most accessible accelerometer for a while after that. It didn't even include a gyroscope at first—that was a later-released plug-in module, before being built in even later. I imagine the PlayStation 3's SIXAXIS controller (also 2006), which did include a gyroscope, would have been used as a cheap IMU too, if it was more easily interfaceable.

Nowadays, IMUs cost pennies, and every phone includes one. More relevantly, devices like the Misfit Shine use them to detect bike crashes and the like, and alert responders. In the same vein, it would be extremely feasible to use one in a pepper spray vest, to detect falling over distinctly from other sudden motions.)
-- notexactly, Aug 11 2019


Could also work for drunks, inflating air bags etc
-- not_morrison_rm, Aug 11 2019



random, halfbakery