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Military Tech: GPS and Networking
king of birds writes "The New York Times has an interesting article on the present military use of GPS. While some units have rather modern system that can graphically display locations of other troops, others rely on 10-year-old 5 channel receivers. Kind of odd when I can 12 channels on my civilian model (with admittedly lower spatial accuracy)." aaronvegh writes "From the Canadian Press, a story about how a US infantry division uses a system of transponders and servers to track friendly and enemy units, from the headquarters to inside individual tanks. Talk about total information awareness! No friendlies were harmed in the making of this story."
It just tells you exactly where you are lost.
Are those generals commanding troops though an X-Box?!
My personal goal: A poor man's Land Warrior system for paintball scenario games. =]
Isn't it a little risky to put location transponders on all your military units? If the enemy cracks your transponder codes, they can easily target you.
While I know that even in our hi-tech armed forces, shovels still play a key role, I was under the impression that cigarettes no longer were considered as acceptable as in the past. That they don't call out "Smoke 'em if you got 'em" anymore.
I want to adapt this system to graphically display locations of all my girlfriends.
Kind of odd when I can 12 channels on my civilian model
Of course, your civilian model probably fails 1% of the time, and wouldn't survive a day in a sandstorm, in part due to it's fragile electronics.
The Military version, while only 5 channels, is probably much more robust then your puny little civilian model.
Or, even easyer:
Just crack that, and don't waste any of your precious ammo...
Link it to a 3-D sim, and you can "play" the war in real-time.
Add a joystick and some electric "prods" in the soldiers' uniforms, and you can literally play the war.
--Ender
used to target the friendlies that it is supposed to protect?
Who's to say the military doesn't send out 1500 transmissions when they've only got 225 units? Give them all somewhat random ids and keep the fake units' locations moving. Or better yet, cycle the real and fake ids according to a scheme (ala SecurId)
Problem solved.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Triangulation
Triangulation can be effecive, but it's resource intensive and slow.
For multiple targets, it's just not effective. And when was the last time the U.S. sent out "just a few" units?
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
WW II: 21,000 (16%)
Vietnam war: 8,000 (14%)
Gulf War: 35 (23%)
Afghanistan (2002): 4 (13%)
The difference today is instant communications. And the small number of total casualties allows the media to focus on each death.
" Sebastian Ross remembered their "Field Tests." In the ERTS parking lot, technicians would throw new equipment against the wall, kick it across the concrete, and leave it in a bucket of muddy water overnight. Anything found working the next day was certified as field worthy.
-Michael Crichton, Congo"
Wanna bet that the army does the same thing to their equipment? Id rather have a 10 year old kludge that cant be killed than an new shiny untested watch sized piece of crap.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
...are the good guys in blue and the bad guys in red? ;)
There are many methods of navigation...
Most are RF Based
VOR (VHF omindriectional radio-range)
ODB (omni direction becon)
DME (distance mesuring equipment)
Loran
Radar can be used for navigation
GPS everyone is familar with.
there are also visual methods
The stars
Dead Reconing, bast on land marks.
Our marines are trained in navigation by stars and I believe they still check their ship's position every knight and compare it to the GPS info.
All pilots are traind Dead Reconing first, as this is a skill most people have (although some haven't devoloped it very well). Soon after they move into Triangulation of radio signals, and eventually you are allowed to use a GPS
(This has a privacy benefit: If they were asleep in bed, the whole room won't know who's bed.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
So, what kind of GPS was that maintenance company using when they got lost and captured by the Iraqis?
I wonder if it was an old unit that broke down. They should have a rule that says three GPS per unit at least. And a good map as backup.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The advantages of this type of system go above and beyond actual battlefield situational awareness -- this type of system dramatically improves the ability of the forces to train for battle too.
... I imagine in the old days it was a lot more macro-level simulations ("Sir, our forces our meeting resistance in the North, what would you like to do?").
;)
I'd always wondered how exactly the military "war games"
With a system like this, commanders are able to train on the same hardware and UI as they would in a real battle -- all they need to do is replace the live feed with a simulated feed, and bingo -- instant low-level war-game.
With our infantry training on how to aim and shoot and our commanders using a system like this to command them, it's no wonder we have the best-prepared military in the world.
Cooooool.
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
From the article:
The new system will also track all 12 G.P.S. satellites in each hemisphere at once. The old units can only track five satellites at once, and signals from four satellites are required to establish a three-dimensional position. In addition, current G.P.S. receivers are somewhat vulnerable to enemy equipment that beams false G.P.S. signals to indicate the wrong location, a technique known as spoofing.
Here's the thing: the article is correct about the PLGR needing four locked satellites to establish a three-dimensional position. However, a PLGR can also establish a two-dimensional position with two locked signals and one intermittent one. The important part here is that the PLGR's most common use (determining position for individual soldiers and vehicles) doesn't need a 3D position. Your position (including elevation) can be plotted on any map using only two coordinates. 3D positions are only important for aircraft, air defense, and artillery. And for the most part, those guys aren't using PLGRs. Oh, and PLGRs can track up to 10 satellites.
This corrective post brought to you by a US Army Cavalry Scout. (None of this information, by the way, is classified or restricted. The reporter just didn't check sources very well.)
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
An oscilliscope can show a waveform, and through that the user can derive the frequency of modulation.
What keeps this from being done to find the frequency just "hopped" to? Why can't the whole waveform be recorded for future demodulation once the frequencies and times have been determined?
BTW, once we get reliable quantum entanglement, this will be irrelevant as we could do perfect encryption. Well, perfect until the commies figure out how to latch onto and/or predict entanglement values.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Just recently I had to give a presentation on Garmin, a GPS manufacturer. I mentioned that they don't really make military grade GPS's. But an individual in the class, who was in the military, said that many officers actually carry civilian GPS's in addition to the military ones. They're less accurate, but they're much faster than many of the military grade ones.
American pilots do a good enough job of providing friendly fire for everyone on the battlefield.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If you have a Motorola i88s and download a midlet I wrote you can track your cell phone and have it's position update a web page in real time. You can also mark an interesting location to see where it is on a map or aerial photo later. This is possible thanks to Nextel's always on internet connection for $9.99 for 1 Meg per month. Of course if the enemy has web access this wouldn't be too good
Free cell phone tracking
Plus the old ones have such a crappy user interface that you accidentally drop bombs on your own troops. Apparently, its a 14 step process to replace the battery, and in the confusion of battle mistakes are made. The same display for "current" location is used for "target" location, and in Afghanistan they dropped some on themselves. (Learned during a presentation by Alan Cooper).
Sleep is for the Weak
god, i hope they don't base anything off the UPS.
they've bunged up so many deliveries it's not even funny.
could you imagine if the were in charge of geting you from point A to B at light speed or greater?
chances are probably good that you would arrive, but not in your normal operating condition.
yes. this is sarcasm.
While some units have rather modern system that can graphically display locations of other troops, others rely on 10-year-old 5 channel receivers. Kind of odd when I can 12 channels on my civilian model (with admittedly lower spatial accuracy).
The fact that some units are using a "10-year-old 5 channel receiver" does not surprise or concern me in the least. The military has prerogatives other than "latest and greatest nifty stuff" when procuring equipment.
Those old units probably contain custom hardware to cope with un-obfuscating GPS signals for back when the signal was still (and could again) being obfuscated. Those devices survive generation after generation of soldiers who are expected to use the things in all combat environments. In other words, this is not some plastic Taiwanese el-cheapo GPS receiver you paid $300 for at wiggliesneatshit.com. Do you have any clue how much time and money it takes to build one-off mil-spec equipment in low volumes that the military routinely requires?
I've actually found detailed technical information about the unit you're talking about. It's here and it's a damned interesting read. For instance, does your spiffy little 12 channel unit happen to have any anti-jamming/spoofing features? Exactly how many artillery shell concussion shock waves will your unit survive while your crew is firing the ol' 155mm? The DoD is so happy with the things they are trying to extend the warranty!
The fact that some units have more modern equipment than others is a perfectly normal, healthy way to run a military. Some of you paying attention to our recent deployment to Iraq have learned that the Army's 4th Infantry Division has only just now arrived in theater. This happens to be the Army's "showcase" Division. If it's the latest, the 4th ID has got it. It's not that our government didn't want to deploy the 4th, but Turkey didn't cooperate and the whole outfit had to be floated around the Mediterranean. Basically, the most advanced ground force on Earth arrived just in time to become traffic cops. Meanwhile, the old fashioned 10-year-old PLGR units are probably exactly what the 3rd ID used to actually get the job done.
You show me someone astonished by military procurement practices and I'll show you an ignorant fool. The next time you have the urge to compare your knowledge of equipment/technology to that of a military, just assume your wrong and shut up.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Here are two screenshots (reg req?) of FBCB2, a battlefield force-viewing program.
Can someone tell me what OS it's running on?
Plainly FBCB2 is using X11 windows to draw the display. But the open "Start" menu in the lower-left strongly resembles Microsoft Windows(tm), except for the replacement of the "Flying Window" logo with a yellowish blob.
It seems excessively fragile to be running two boxes for the software and it's display- could it be that FBCB2 is a Unix program, but the Army has adapted a Microsoft-like X11 window manager to make their troops feel more comforatable with it?
Did you notice the GUI interface is X windows?
cswingle Fairbanks AK
But these people do.
1904 civilian deaths reported so far. Less than Kuwait lost when they were invaded, or the number killed in NY Tradecenter destruction.
Not bad.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
My guess is that it's an X11 Unix application being displayed on a windows box running Exceed to make it into a virtual X terminal.
(Yes Virginia, the dumb terminal is alive and well.)
Said configuration is so common it's almost obscene. My first Job out of college was at one of Lockheed Martin's many branches. All of the REAL work was done on various flavours of Unix (AIX, HP-UX and some other IBM OS in our case, and some projects in the facility were expreimenting with Linux and BSD as alternatives (Main problem being, VA and the like don't exactly build their boxen to MILSPEC, HP and IBM were happy to do so.) Obviously, we needed a Unix environment to program computers that would be rinning Unix in the field. Makes sence, right?
Problem being, as they said on Star Trek: "The buerocratic mentality is the only constant in the universe". And LMCO has a BIG one. Some big muckety-muck, a CIO, an IT director, or somesuch, had chosen Dell as the desktop vendor for our facility, gotten several score truckloads of the things at bulk rate, built an NT-centric IT staff and 'standard desktop configuration', and said "Thou shalt use windows on thy desktop!". No matter that windows is completely useless to engineers. He's got his Dell/windows empire, and he's going to lord over it. So what we had to do, is run Exceed on the things to open virtual X windows onto the real computers, on which our actual work was done. This was supposedly a pretty common situation at the rest of LMCO as well.
In the course of doing latter jobs, and interviewing for others, I've discovered that this is stupidly common within other government contractors as well, and not uncommon outside. So I've little doubt that it's pretty common in the actual military as well.
I can't even BEGIN to imagine just HOW many windows PCs are out there, complete with Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc. etc. etc., all those licenses doing nothing but burning money; when the only purpose they wind up serving is as a glorified dumb terminal.
(PS. Oh yeah... it's not too hard to change the graphic on the start menu button, startup screen, or most other places, so that's no indication that it's not windows.)
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
I'm thinking more 5 minutes ago; one process determines the frequencies and send them to another process that demodulates that portion of the signal.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
link
"FBCB2 software - which is architecturally compliant with the Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment"
Whether it's been implemented on >1 OS I dunno. But it's designed to be.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Latitude: 39.284339
Longitude: -76.575952
So do you consider that Canton or Patterson Park?
This is a neat demonstration of technology, but do you worry about people knowing where you are?
Yeah. Except when I try this with my wife I get really really usefull answers like. "I'm near the thingy", or "I'm where we were before."... gah...
Can't wait until my garmin rino's show up....
As you can see, FBCB2 was developed on Solaris, ported to VxWorks and then LynxOS. No MS OS or Exceed.
I'm sorry, this is when you wife was asleep in bed? :^P
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
There is so much more in the pipe than this. Wait another two years.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer
"...to track friendly and enemy units, from the headquarters to inside individual tanks. Talk about total information awareness!"
Yes i can see how that works - they track friendly British planes and tanks, and shoot them anyway! Then busy-Bush gets some PR to make everyone aware of how sorry they ar(nt)...
ROFL
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Yes, sad but true!
Your are so ignorant, you'd prefer a brutal dictator who's killed thousands of his own innocent people without a valid reason over liberated Iraqi's dancing in the streets and screaming "We love U.S." and "Thank you, Mr. Bush."
No, massdestruction weapons have been found yet, since the mission of the military was to topple the regime first, look for weapons second. When someone is firing at you, it's a little difficult to read the Geiger counter. Remember, Iraq is the size of California, and much of it is wasteland. Saddam could've buried thousands of chemical weapons and we'd have to search years before we'd find them. Even the U.N. wanted six months to try and find these weapons, and that's WITHOUT the Republican Guard shooting at them. Now you want the U.S. military to find them in three weeks or "they're not there"? You are a fool!
Who's next? Syria, if they've sheltered war criminals or are holding onto Saddam's weapons "just for safe keeping", is high on the list, as is saber-rattling Kim Jong Il and North Korea. It's high time folks figured out that if they keep treating the U.S. like an enemy, sooner or later we're going to start acting like one...and you don't want us as an enemy, as Saddam has found out.
The truth: you're so anti-American biased that no matter what we do, you're going to hate us and blame us for the worst things you can come up with. So we're going to do you a favor: we're going to start living up to your expectations of us. You say we're the great Satan? You got what you asked for. More's on the way if you keep it up.
Don't like it? Too bad. Go build your own superpower nation and then we'll talk. Folks like you are fond of blaming us when the bombs start falling, yet you seem to forget that we're not bombing countries that haven't been chanting "Death to America" for years. I wonder...could it be the behavior of these countries and their corrupt regimes that's brought the might of the American military down on them? Nah...it couldn't be. It has to be our imperialistic ways, right? Hey, wait...listen...is that the sound of a falling smart bomb over your head?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky