Who do you think probably funded this? His advisor is funded by (at least) ONR, ARL, and DARPA.
You don't think the DOD has tons of this stuff under its belt already?
If it doesn't already, it will do soon. 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... oh look, the guy just got a DOD research grant.
This was my first thought. It's sad that whenever new technology is developed, governments think of ways to use the technology to kill people.
A simple look a history suggests that 99% of all human invention begins with looking for a better way of killing each other.
Don't blame governments, we're all like that.
That's kind of a weird thing to say, since the main reason so many inventions are related to weapons is directly because political entities war with each other so much. Serial killers, cuckolded husbands, and street gangs don't usually pay for new weapons inventions the way governments do.
Yet, this is really only because every other government is doing the exact same thing. An arms race naturally has a self-defense component.