In the recent years armored materials have been intensively developed for various applications. The renaissance of gerrilla groups in several international and national conflicts around the world has increased the number of incidents involving light weapons. These weapons are increasingly harmful, now being able to perforate the armored vehicles and aircrafts that were secure before and making compulsory to reinforce the resistance of the materials used. In addition, there is an interest in increasing the action area of these vehicles being exposed to more severe conditions. The design of armored materials must find a compromise between performance and weight. This can only be achieved investing into new research lines focusing on the development of new materials with significant added value. Recent advances on the performance of armored materials have been based on materials able to quickly dissipate most of the kinetic energy generated during the impact of the projectile on the armored plate. For instance, ceramic materials have shown a good balance between weight and the amount of energy dissipated during the fracture process. Composite materials present similar densities and energy dissipation rates by resorting to the delamination process. Finally, porous materials can be even lighter being the process of compaction the main responsible for the energy dissipation. One energy dissipation process that remains still unexplored is the process of cavitation. The project CACHMAP (Laser shock induced cavitation in porous matrices) is a fundamental research project aiming at quantifying the total amount of energy dissipated by cavitation when a light solid porous matrix saturated with a liquid is exposed to short pressure pulses. Because this project proposes the development of new technologies to protect citizens against ballistic aggressions, it fits into the EU societal challenge “Secure societies- Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens”. The project is proposed for a total duration of 3 years and it is based on the experimental characterization of various porous matrix saturated with various liquids. The use of shock waves induced by short laser pulses will allow characterizing micron size porous material samples with sizes in the range of few millimeters thickness and with surfaces of the order of square centimeters. The project will concentrate on the implementation and development of the experimental techniques required to characterize the processes. In a first stage, polymeric piezoelectric pressure sensors will be used to capture the averaged response of the material to shock waves which is expected to be influenced by the inception of cavitation. This technology will be further developed in order to filter out specific range of frequencies adapted to laser pulses. State of the art data treatment methods will be also explored in order to maximize the amount of information extracted from the experimental signals. Finally, the project will also include the development of models capable to predict the response of dry and saturated porous matrices which may be eventually used for future designs of new armored materials.