AFS Has Hi-Tech Plans for Site

Advanced Fusion Systems, which bought property last year on Edmond Road in the hopes of growing its startup business, is dabbling in a niche hi-tech manufacturing market with few players.

While the technology was developed for possible military application it may appeal more to companies that maintain power grids or even large scale environmental remediation, officials, who are seeking a five year tax assessment freeze on their property, told the Board of Selectmen during a presentation Monday at the Municipal Center.

For instance, one of the first devices the company is expected to manufacture is a fault current limiter, which will help protect power grid from damaging electrical surges.

“This is one of the quickest things that we will get off the ground as soon as we start off,” Chief Executive Officer William Joyce said. “ConEd would like to buy 10,000 of these items right away and they are pricey items.”

The company also has developed technology that will provide electromagnetic pulse protection, which at first glance may have applications in the defense field.

For instance, an electromagnetic pulse can disable electronic devices within a certain radius – for instance, stopping a car bomber by disabling the electronics on the vehicle, Joyce told the selectmen. However, the downside to the technology is that all devices within a certain radius would be affected. AFS has the expertise to build the pulse-creating equipment as well as the technology to protect from it.

The technology also has uses in other sectors, for instance in the protection of naturally occurring electromagnetic pulses, such as those that could come from a solar storm, according to Joyce.

“If you had the same attack from the sun today it would take out the entire North American grid,” he said.

Another technology is the development of a laser that might have uses in environmental remediation, such as decomposing pesticide or fertlizer in water bodies, Joyce said.

The Edmond Road site is expected to be transformed into a state-of-the-art testing facility, which will be crucial because most of the real-world applications involve extreme circumstances.

“In the initial stages, we will be testing all of the products off of the line,” Joyce said. “No one can test themselves. They would need to wait for one of those events to happen. So we need to.”

In order to conduct the testing, the company is expected to bring substantially more power into its facility. In order to allow for that, the facility will have to be specially designed.

For instance, its test rooms will be equipped with heavily reinforced doors similar to those used in missle-test facilites, Joyce said, and with security measures such as requiring two people with keys to close the door, which is in itself a prerequisite to turning on the electricity.

“We’ve gone to some elaborate things to protect the technology,” Joyce said in describing encryption used on company cell phones and setting up two separate computer networks for internal use and one to interact with the outside.

Editor's note: For more information on the tax relief the firm is seeking from the town, go to .

Correction: AFS has technology to protect from electromagnetic pulses, although it also has expertise to build equipment that can generate those pulses as well. An earlier version of this article was not accurate in its description of AFS's technology in that area.