Boeing Patents Futuristic Force Field Aerospace and defence firm Boeing BA -1.59% has just been granted a patent for what looks like the forerunner to the kind of force-fields you typically see in sci-fi movies.

The �Method and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc� isn�t quite the all-purpose energy shield you see around spaceships in movies like Star Wars, but it definitely in that ball park.

The system won�t protect people, vehicles or buildings from direct hits by bombs, guns or shrapnel, but it will protect its user from the shockwaves of nearby impacts.

As described in the typically dense language of a patent, the system would include a sensor to detect the explosion or other shockwave-producing event and determine the direction and distance of the shockwave relative to the �protected asset�. The system would then calculate a firing plan for an arc generator that capable of dispersing the energy density of the shockwave.

�[The system] may include a sensor for detecting a source of the shockwave and generating a detection signal, an arc generator in communication with the sensor and configured to receive the detection signal therefrom, and in response thereto create an electromagnetic arc to heat a selected region of the first fluid medium rapidly to create the second, transient medium, different from the first medium, interposed between the shockwave and the protected region such that the shockwave contacts the second, transient medium,� the patent sort of explains.

Just how this arc force-field will work is left pretty open, but Boeing has submitted a few ideas, including using at least one of the following � �high intensity laser pulses, pellets forming a conductive ion trail, sacrificial conductors, projectiles trailing electrical wires or magnetic induction�.

If the first medium is, as it probably would be, the air, the idea is that the arc generator would create a second medium different in density, temperature and composition, in this case by superheating the air, which could then reflect, refract, absorb or deflect at least part of the damaging shockwave.

It sounds pretty good, but it not quite the force field of our sci-fi future. First off, it can�t stop actual projectiles, those would just drop right through. It also doesn�t cover an entire vehicle or area like an overturned cereal bowl, it just gets pointed in one direction. And it also isn�t something that always turned on, the sensor has to detect that a shockwave is on its way and then turn on in time to help save its protected asset. So we won�t be heading into battle �shields up� anytime soon, but it does sound like a baby step in that direction � if Boeing gets it working, that is!