Slashdot Mirror
When Looks Can Kill
Ben Sullivan writes "From the Los Angeles Times: "Test pilots here are flying with sophisticated helmets, resembling a bug's eye, that allow them to aim their weapons and sensors simply by looking at potential targets on the ground or in the air. The helmets, when coupled with a highly maneuverable new missile that is close to deployment, would enable fighter pilots to look over their shoulders and fire instantly at targets, a feat that until now has been matched only in science fiction movies."
Development was done by San Jose-based Vision Systems International, a joint venture of defense electronics maker Rockwell Collins Inc. and Israeli's Elbit. Raytheon makes the sharp-turning AIM-9X missile."
I'm half-way through putting one of these in my car - leaves my hands free to drink coffee, tune the radio etc.
Come Monday morning, if you're driving in Portland, OR, you might want to take extra care at junctions until I've got the bugs ironed out.
0xB
The Russians have had helmet mounted sights and versions of the Archer AAM that can come off the launch rail at absurd angles for versions of the Mig-29 and Su-27 for some time now. Coupled with an infrared search and track sensor, they can mount a passive attack, no radar warning at all.
And the apache helicopter, been doing it for more than 10 years.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
This time lets not sell the tech to the Israelis so they stop kicking our pilots asses so bad in mock dogfights. This could be like their handicap.
Sigs are awesome huh?
This has been on the Apache for some time now.
Joe Carnes
While this would definitely be faster, maybe more accurate...if all you have to do is LOOK at something to blow it up, might not the chances for friendly fire or other accidents be increased? What else does a pilot have to do to mark and/or fire at their target?
you take a quick look at your wingman and utter the words "shoot, he's too far away" then you hear... "target locked...firing..."
technology is beginning to get big enough to cause som really big mishaps...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Heeeeeeeeere's - CHINA!
Military capability is not static. Think 20-30 years from now.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I'll play devil's advocate.
Firstly, military technology has had many beneficial spinoffs - such as the Internet. It can be argued that other publically funded research is a better investment of our dollars, and produces more beneficial spinoffs per dollar spent. However, the spinoffs of military technology definitely improve human society.
Secondly, it is not true that we will remain militarily invincible forever. It would be *more* true if we stopped exporting our best, or next-to best, military technology to whichever fascist regime we wanted to prop up today, but nonetheless, if we stopped improving our military the rest of the world would eventually catch up. Bribing our defense sector with huge amounts of cash money helps to prevent our existing defense technology from percolating into the rest of the world - espionage against US defense contractors would be hugely easier if they were not flush with cash. Obviously, this doesn't prevent all bribery of the defense industry (the two things that human beings possess in potentially infinite amounts being greed and stupidity) but it helps.
Thirdly, R&D, while more expensive for the military than for any other
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
You want to know when "enough is enough"? When the rest of the world's military powers appear to be using muskets as compared to our gear of that future day.
Yeah, right. If you take the entire axis of evil, and throw in a few other countries around the region, its outpowered by the US about 3 to 1.
The only way you can meet anyone in the air with weapons even vaguely threatening to the US is if the US sells them to that person in the first place. Please bear in mind that this is just how most of these places got their weapons in the first place. Iran, Iraq and Afganistan have had, over the last 15 years a great deal of military support from the US.
The point is, the US doesn't really need better weapons, and certainly not on the scale it produces them. It does need to stop giving them away and selling them to governments and rebel groups in third world countries because of a (usually very short term) intervention.
Think it through - since the fall of the soviet union the supply of military equipment to the third world has come predominantly from the US. (Who else do you think has the technology to make it)?
Ok, enough preaching - my take home message: If you want the US to have overwhelming military strength, thats easy - stop selling and giving your weapons away.
My 2c worth. (There goes my karma!)
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world, and even without devices like this no other country can seriously challenge the United States in a conventional war
Wrong.
Superior technology != victory in war.
Someone may have already mentioned China. The US has ~220 million citizens last I heard. China has billions. Granted, transporting anyone over would be tough, but China could obliterate Asia and Europe in a few decades pretty easily if it had the desire.
And how about this technology for defense? Technology needs to continue to progress for one to compete in ANY realm...be it business or in military. We could back from finding new technology in the military, but surely nobody else would. Complacency has been the end of many civilizations.
Now for the economic advantage...the government is spending money on a PRODUCT. This money goes into employees hands and they spend it. Then those who they paid for product/service spend it again. This is the beauty of economics. Government spending is GOOD for the economy, regardless of what political alignment you are. This money could be spent on saving trees or welfare...but our the economic benefits are nil.
Go USA.
--Matt
Another question I'd like to see answered: how accurate is human eyesight anyway? Sure, to us it seems pretty accurate, but how accurately can you pick up on the eye's positioning? What if you've got a gimp-eye that keeps straying off to the corner? What about picking up on depth-of-field? With ground targets this shouldn't be as much of a problem, but in the air, especially with an air target between you and the ground, depth-of-field becomes critical. It seems like the biggest "bugs" in this system are the foibles of the human eye.
No problem with this, as far as the missile launch being done by a trigger, not by thoughts.
Imagine a stupid lietunent (just like Band of Brothers) starring at the pilot in front of a plane equiped with this device. It would be interesting to see stupid sargents being killed!
But, what can I do? What can I say? I'm not military. :o)
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I'm afraid its not on my version of Apache, but I believe the new 2.0 version of Apache may have it.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world, and even without devices like this no other country can seriously challenge the United States in a conventional war
Maybe no other country can challenge the US. At least, not right now. China, for example, has the goal of improving their tech enough that they may become a more equal competitor. And many other nations have interests in targetting the US for any type of war (conventional or otherwise).
Why is it that people say "hey--we've got the best in the business (in this case the business of war). Why should we keep developing?" It's like people really, truely believe that we don't have any competition (or people who want to be competitors). Microsoft hasn't given us much in way of innovation since Win95. And some would say that they are the "best in the business" for desktop OS's. But that's no excuse for them to be sitting around waiting for others to finally catch up. Instead, they should be trying to improve even more. That would only give them a larger lead.
It is a poor rationalization in my opinion to say that we should ever pretend that some amount of military tech is "good enough". There will always be advances. The country who can aquire and use these advances first has an enormous advantage. The US doesn't merely want to have the most powerful military in the world--the intent is to have a military always so advanced and powerful that no other nation would ever question a war. Simply having the technology can prevent war altogether and save many lives.
In my opinion, I would much rather fund military research than many other projects. People like to say that disease, world hunger, and other interests should come first. My only response is: What would it matter if I had cancer if I am dodging bullets? What good does sending food to poor countries do when the food never reaches those people in need do to gangs?
I think people misunderstand the role of the military and its necessity for the US. This world isn't a fairy-tale place. Bad people exist, and they intend to hurt us. It is only by military power that this world is as safe as it is now. Simply look to WWII for inspiration--as well as the Cold War and how two superpowers used their militaries to ensure (mostly) peace stayed in place to prevent WWIII. I don't see any problems with sending my tax dollars in for military research. I'm also quite happy to feed starving kids in Afganistan, too. And education. And... etc.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Could the US do more? Sure. If someone defeats the US with superior firepower, will they do better? Not a chance. Power acquired though violent means is rarely employed for the good of the majority.
I would prefer to see the US retain its abililty to defend itself against aggressors. If the US is defeated in war, the victor is not likely to be someone who does a better job fighting the "very serious problems of disease, starvation, and poverty." If that matters to you, you should be glad for the United States' military superiority.
We have superiority today, but if we stop developing bigger, better, badder weapons, that will change. Superiority is a process, not a result.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Umm....
First:
U.S. ~270 million
China ~1.13 billion
Second:
How could China obliterate Asia and Europe?
Europe (excl. Russia) ~380 million
Rest of Asia ~1.73 billion
Third:
What does population have to do with it?
Fourth:
What is your last point???
I recall reading recently that research was being done on a helmet like this that would be combined with external sensors so the pilot could "see" things that were not visible to him in the cockpit. For instance, he could look down by his feet and see an aircraft below him. They could couple this with a quick method of changing "views," like those flight simulator games that allow you to toggle between forward/left/right/aft view, to make a formidable fighting system.
By the way, for the whiners complaining that this will facilitate blue-on-blue kills: it's just a targeting system. The pilot still has to aim and pull the trigger.
Evil is the money of root.
you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world
You seem to forget that this technology will be used primarily in situations where one man is trying to kill one other man. The one who loses dies. You apparently expect American pilots to make do with "good enough" since we're already the best. Being from the most technologically advanced military does you no good when an enemy pilot has managed to get behind you.
Evil is the money of root.
As the US Army puts it:
The modern HMD is not a new concept. Its invention has been attributed to Gordon Nash, a British researcher, who explored alternative methods of providing additional information to the aviator in the 1950's (Adam, 1995). Marshall (1989) traces the concept of using the helmet as a platform for a fire control (weapon aiming) back to 1916, when Albert Bacon Pratt developed and received patents for an integrated gun helmet, perhaps the very first helmet-mounted sight (HMS). This concept was revisited in the Helmet Sight System (HSS) used in the U.S. Army's AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter in the 1970's. Task and Kocian (1995) cite the U.S. Navy's Visual Target Acquisition System (VTAS), developed in the 1960's, as the first fully operational visually coupled sighting system. [However, the system was abandoned due to lack of sufficient missile fire control technology.] For Army aviation, the AN/PVS-5 NVG was the first pilotage imagery HMD (first tested in 1973), and the IHADSS was the first integrated HMD (fielded since 1985).
Simply, an HMD projects head-directed sensor imagery and/or fire control symbology onto the eye, usually superimposed over a see-through view of the outside world.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Two wee flies in the ointment here. First off, it is not useful to be able to target your weapons on an unidentified foe, especially if they turn out not to be foe.
:v)
Second, while all this close-range dogfight stuff is all very well, most modern AAM-type weapons are designed to be fired with a stand-off distance that renders the target virtually invisible to the naked eye. So you might have trouble aiming by looking at it.
Vik
Simple; you just compress a 360 degree x 180 degree field of view into something like 200x100. The sides, back, and top get distorted around the edges of the main view area. Takes some practice, but then, so does anything other than smashing a big stick up and down.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I think that many of us are too easily charmed into the "coolness" of the applications, the "coolness" of the implementation, and forget what military hardware is designed to do, namely to commit aggression and kill people.
Not to be starting any flaming here, but you forget that when someone else is trying to kill you, it's not "commit[ting] aggression" to try and stop them with deadly force. Until we perfect stun phasers and such, the only defense against someone trying to kill you is to try and kill them first. You can try half measures, intimidation, saber rattling, sanctions, and other things, but if your opponents is hell bent on killing you, you're going to have to kill him to make it stop. It's ugly, but it's true. There can be no reasoning with a zealot, especially religious ones...
...unless you propose just giving in and letting an aggressor have his/her way? I seem to recall that's been done before, in the late 1930's...didn't work out too well for the world, did it?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Raytheon makes the sharp-turning AIM-9X missile.
.)
Please note that the AIM-9x != AOL Instant Messenger for Windows 95/98. (Although the destructive effects on the lives of those who come into contact with them are striking similar . .
Ah well, it sounded better in my head. Honestly.
If frowning is used as trigger, then Grampa Simpson's phrase "to give somebody the frowning of their life" will get a new meaning.
You: Oh, we need to stop glorifying war and feeding the military monster!!! Look at me!! We need to stop this!
/.?
April 15th rolls around...
You: Here ya go Uncle Sam, here's a bunch of money to do whatever you wish with.
If you really feel so strongly, then put a note with your taxes asking for your money back. Henry David Thoreau went to jail because he refused to support the Mexican American war with his tax dollars, and you just sit and bitch on
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
I think military technical capabilities will converge over time; the issue will be who has the economic power to implement the technology.
China's economy is growing pretty fast.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
The AIM9X is late, and it is not state of the art. A true tribute to the royally fscked up air force procurement process. I seem to recall that lockmart and elbit both set some speed records during the python 4 integration on the F-16. It was supposed to have been (rumored anyway) a real model fast track development effort.
Also, one of the reason the Israelis have done so well in joint exercises is that they CAN take HOBS shots. The US deployment of such a system would just level the playing field a bit rather than give American pilots an advantage.
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Pretty soon it will be shoulder launched nukes which you can aim just by looking.
Absolute statements are never true
One more thing to ponder. How many Chinese got blasted in WWII by the Japanese? Population numbers don't mean much if your military presence sucks. From what I've read China has plenty of presence now so I doubt Japan will ever try to pull a fast one again.
Except that you don't take on goliath by playing by his rules; you fight dirty, and distributed low-tech terrorism is very fuck'n effective against F-##'s, bombers, and ICBM's...
Exhibit a: box cutters.
Exhibit b: bomb strapped to chest.
The Palestinians don't really have a chance against Israel's army of expensive toys in a conventional war, so they hit below the belt (which is 'understandable')... rendering all those (U.S. made) toys mostly worthless.
Exhibit c: C4 on NYC water main + dirty bomb ... oh wait, this hasn't happened yet.
My point is that it makes more sense to attack the root of these problems (with food, medicine, education, means of production, fair politics, etc.) rather than building up massive militaries to treat the untreatable symptoms of problems we help cause... and then bitch and moan when terrorists don't play by the rules.
(I might come off sounding like some anti-american "terrorist sympathizer" in this post, but I'm just saying that a 'fucking scary military machine' means jack against more effective cockroaches.)
--
Power to the Peaceful
But how would that happen in the first place?
You can't simply list the superior capabilities of particular aircraft and then declare that they can't lose in a fight. Your "hundred-miles-away" scenario assumes an air superiority fighter with long range weapons (a scenario in which the subject technology wouldn't be used anyway.) What about an F/A-18 flying CAP with AIM-7 and 9, who gets jumped by two MiG-21's who just launched undetected from the next valley over? What about LCDR Speicher, who was shot down by an enemy aircraft during the first night of the Gulf War, flying a state-of-the-art F/A-18? Was his targeting system "good enough?"
Evil is the money of root.
Suspending for a second the value judgement about whether war is bad, you cannot deny that war has been one of the primary advancers of human technology. Over the last 50 years, many of the high tech inventions we use today have some basis in something designed for war. IC's had their first real usage in missles; the wonderfully decentralized internet began as a communication system that could route around nuclear blasts; Nylon fabric was invented in WWII for parachutes (the Japanese seemed to have some weird problem giving us silk back then); I would not be surprised if many of the optical storage technologies have had serious contributions from technologies developed from the Star Wars program. War technology is therefore extremely relevant to any discussion of emergent technologies.
That being said, I must admit I am equally horrified by the possibility of helmets that aim weapon systems by the act of looking at something--the carnage of a nude beach near a naval airstation would be unthinkable.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Technology certainly helped in Afghanistan. There's no longer a friendly government to host the terrorists in that case, and interestingly we're getting cooperation from Pakistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Singapore...
The Palestine Authority is a special case. For political, religious and diplomatic reasons, arresting Arafat and his friends would have nasty ramificaitons.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The AIM-9X / look-n-shoot is a direct response to the Cold War developments by the Soviets that was above and beyond any technology we had. The system used in the MIG-29 and SU-27, comprised of slaving the targeting computer to the helmet display and using FLIR as well, similar to the Apaches'. But the neat thing about the Soviet's system is that it was completely passive, with use of a variety of missles IR or radar: AA-10b/d "Alamo" or AA-11 "Archer". Also, the field of view of the IR seekers and the maneuverability of their missles had much wider envelopes than ours (US). The AA-11 uses thrust-vectoring to maneuver in such a way as to be able to pull over 12 Gs and has a range of 40 km, compared to our AIM-9M max range of about 15-20 km and maneuverability of about 9-10 Gs.
(link to Soviet missles)
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
In such a small country almost nothing is beyond visual range.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
People seem to be trying to develop more and more ways to kill each other, and these methods are getting faster, easier, and more brutal all the time. Rather than a helmet that will shoot a missile at something just by looking, wouldn't money be better spent developing a helmet that, when pointed at someone, encouraged peace? If more time and money were spent on diplomacy, and less on new ways to kill people, peace would be easier to come by in the world.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Military capability is not static. Think 20-30 years from now.
Especially after the US has bankrupted its Treasury fighting an endless war against an abstract noun.
I understand that you have no knowlege about first wave of Turkish attack on Cyprus in 1974. We had all imported equipment mostly from USA and guess what, the minute we tried to use them against will of USA we started to see ghost ships and planes around, communications has been disrupted leading us to sink our own ship, navigation systems failed... Lesson learned and we build our own military industry but I think most third world countries still haven't taken that step. Exporting high tech military equipment makes USA more powerful, not less. Also don't forget military exports finance further research, if you stopped exporting them, it would have been easier for other to catch you.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Well, yeah, there is the risk of that.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
While this is the first I've heard of such a system being used on a airplane, helicopter gunships have had look-aim systems in use for several years now. Take a look at later versions of the Apache and Super Cobra.
Somebody commented to me that there was a system in development that would actually read the movement of the pilot's eyeballs to determine more precisely where he was looking -- anybody know anything about this?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->