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The Soldier is the Network
Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from InfoWorld says that "in the battle of the future, the helmet becomes a data retrieval device." It describes a scenario where soldiers are equipped with sensors and other networking equipment. "Each person is a network with routing capability to everyone else," says Peter Marcotullio, director of development at SRI International. This technology should be available in five years for the military, which probably means that we'll become networks ourselves ten years from now. Check this column for a summary. Please note that this article is part of a special report called "From the battlefield to the enterprise" which looks at why some key technologies -- deployed on a massive scale in Afghanistan and Iraq -- may hold promise for corporate IT."
With DARPA and DoD's never ending penchant for technology to solve every problem, I see potential for numerous problems with the "wired soldier". DoD has a bandwidth problem now trying to control and get imagery from airborne Predator UAV's, what happens when you wire the individual soldier? Where is this bandwidth going to come from? Can this be subject to monitoring and how is it going to be secured? For that matter can it withstand an EMP pulse? If I wanted to take out communicating enemy forces using modern comm gear that is not hardened, a small tactical nuke would do just fine. And what about the possibility of interception even if it is secure? What if a unit that has a base unit to receive updates is captured, then parts of the system (or the whole system) is compromized. This will take years of testing before it ever becomes reality, I wouldn't hold my breath.
FYI, being a pacifist doesnt make you immune to violence from others.
This guy is way out there
It's true. Just try to protect yourself against aggression without hurting anyone or anything.
.. all that fancy equipment will do if the enemy has some of those EMP bombs that they were itching to try out in Iraq. (Did they ever use one, or is that classified?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The trick is to not make people aggressive towards you. I guess you guys have a problem with that too??
Also, I know non lethal Kung Fu, so if I ever have to defend myself, I can disable my opponent with a few quick blows. Without hurting them in a serious manner, of course.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Admitedly, many present and future systems do contain a fair amount of autonomous behaviour, including aircraft control, targeting, and even expert systems aplied to target selection. These seem to work pretty well, and I'm sure we'll see more of them. I would imagine that millitary tradition will keep important descions in the hands of humans for a long time, though.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
This is also why I'm against putting additional electronics in guns. Sure, a gun that self destructs if an identity check fails seems like a good idea, right up until someone loses an arm because the mechanism malfunctioned. Sometimes keeping it simple is still the best policy.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think the point of the article is that this technology already exists and it's the implementation that's really innovative. The challenge is making such a system practical for use on the battlefield so that a soldier isn't lugging around a couple of car batteries, a PC, bulky wireless equipment etc...
Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."
You bring up a very good point. But, when has any military (US or otherwise) really cared about the long-term welfare of its soldiers?
Look at the evidence over the years: soldiers acting as guinea pigs during the post World War II atomic bomb tests, chemical stimulants used on US soldiers in Vietnam (and bromide tea given to troops in World War I), antitodes that have lead to serious side-effects being administered during the first Gulf War, who knows how many instances of post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
It has been said that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Politicians aren't exactly reknowned for looking beyond the short-term, and the use (or, more accurately, misuse) of soldiers throughout the ages is fact, not fiction.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Designed especially for the American Law Enforcement user
providing the operator with sixty rounds of available firepower right on the weapon.
So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
Beep beep.
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
No more arm races and unnecessary wars!
Killing people in wars is a crime.
What is with the US fascination with military hardware? The world doesn't need more storm troopers.
60 people? No. Try to stop a car by shooting out the tires/engine? Yes. Also, remember "law enforcement" covers SWAT teams; using 3-round bursts, this will give you 20 pulls of the trigger before it needs to be reloaded. Still a bit excessive for most situations - but better to have too many rounds than to be first into a drug den, and be up against 11 people with only enough to take out 10...
Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
Not from what I've seen - and no, the police don't carry these things on patrol! They just have a lot of stuff "just in case", for dealing with really serious problems. Everything from adapted tanks for breaking down doors, to helicopters for chasing getaway cars without endangering other traffic.
Though I'm lucky enough to have never had this experience, I'm imagine that when people are shooting at you, a little bit of RF energy is the least of your worries.
Also, why not put the antenna on top of the helmet? The helmet than then incorporate a layer of RF shielding. (It's already got layers of protection against shrapnel.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Here in the US, we're pretty generous with our "bullet to person" ratio, so 60 bullets does not imply anywhere close to 60 people. I mean, seriously, even when running with the counterstrike cheats, nobody's that good.
P.S. Last time I was in England, we couldn't find a trash can anywhere. They had mostly been removed because of the possiblity that someone would leave a bomb in one. How's that war zone thing going with you guys?
Don't you think religion might have something to do with religious wars?
You miss the point.
Your religion or lack thereof is irrelevant to the person trying to kill you because their god told them to.
Your philosophy and outlook are similarly irrelevant to the person who wants something you posess (be it on an individual level or a national level) and decides to take it by force.
The upshot of this is that you can't make *all* people "not aggressive towards you".
Your non-lethal kung fu doesn't help if they're smart and armed. Or if they decide to come back with friends and baseball bats.
I do not advocate a philosophy of proactive violence. However, I do not feel that a philosophy of absolute non-violence (or minimum-at-all-costs violence) is practical either, for reasons outlined above.
The utility of this technology is for a unit leader, with an obvious hierarchy of technological burden/C4I access and control. Officers at the platoon level and up would benefit greatly from this technology so that they could keep track of all of their units and support elements. Likewise, a lesser amount of access and interface for squad leaders to keep track of individual soldiers in an urban or similar combat zone. There's no need for anyone below E-5 to need to know the status of the damn UCAVs because they don't, and shouldn't, have the authority to command them anyway.
Moreover, I really wonder if these people actually expect soldiers to basically compromise their line of sight in the middle of combat. Even if they do, those HUDS are never going to be used in the middle of a firefight because there isn't anything remotely useful for a soldier to utilize that can't be done with an order over the radio from someone who DOES have sufficient overwatch capability and necessity to do so. When the U.S. Army or Marine Corps sets up sniper/countersniper positions relatively afar from enemy forces, what difference does it make that each soldier have a map or any other nonsense? They need to be able to shoot and have unit coordination, which is better accomplished by limiting this much technology and information to platoon headquarters units and above, and possibly much less information to squad leaders.
Which brings me to my next point: INFOSEC.
God forbid a soldier or Marine gets killed while wearing all of the crap necessary to operate this farce of a wannabe battlesuit. How do they presume to them eliminate the potential for hostile agents to access and compromise U.S. forces by using all of this information against them when they are in the middle of combat and can't quickly strip the dead soldier (which I'm sure their recently-close friends would enjoy in the middle of combat) and destroy (to prevent immediate threat of compromise) all of this equipment.
All of this equipment has its place, mainly with vehicles (the first place this type of technology was introduced and where it is most advanced) for a reason. It's mainly utility and scope of combat, as well as the amount of data relevant to those forces as opposed to Infantry. Infantry doesn't need this. The officer corps would benefit from it, but the individual soldier or Marine would find it useless, distracting, and quite simply and unnecessary burden. This could easily add 10-20lbs. to their ensemble, and for units in Airborne, Special Operations, and even most Infantry that is heaping crap on top of gear that already weighs almost as much as they do (i.e., the 100+lbs. of gear Airborne soldiers carry in airborne insertions). As we saw in Afghanistan during Operation: Anaconda, depending on the locale the gear was already too much for them to carry, especially as they are moving out in the middle of a firefight, with soldiers actually falling over backwards and struggling to get into helicopters because the weight of the gear and exhaustion (due to fatigue and the thin air at the altitudes of the combat zones in Afghanistan) just got the best of them. So these geniuses want to ADD MORE WEIGHT? Good luck.
Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time?
This is the same sort of question as "Do cell-phones cause brain cancer". We have a lot of experimental data on this, with few answers.
The impact of RF on biological systems has been controversial for a very long time. Some studies have shown that there is an effect, however reproducability is very poor, and the issue is still under study with no clear-cut answer available. Surely any logical person may draw the conclusion that an unknown risk, even if it is small, of this sort should be avoided.
On the other and the essential purpose of these devices is to reduce the likelihood of being killed in battle by conventional weapons. The impact of bullets, explosive devices and so on on the human body in NOT controversial, and is very reproducable.
It seems to me that the tradeoff of some potential, unproven effect of dubious statistical significance vs. significant reduction of the likelihood of taking a rockect propelled grenade in your lap is pretty clear-cut.
This perceived soldier of the future is gonna get wacked pretty easily. Being a former airborne veteran and now engineer, I'm glad that I'm not going to be wearing one of these things. Let's just see...the average pack weighs ~60lbs. Add ~20 for body armor and you get ~80 lbs of gear the average joe has to hump.
Let's see now...we want to stick another 20 lbs of crap on. The makes the average weight for a solder over 100 lbs. And that doesn't take into account the friggin batteries or the fact that the helmet is now going to weigh 10+ lbs (Kevlar helmets are pretty heavy). Talk about neck sprain.
And the idea of having a tactical HUD in front of the soldiers face is just another brilliantly stupid idea...I'm sure the soldier will love it when they're taking fire and sees stupid markers/graphics jumping across his cornea. Screw night vision also...oh wait, they have a AN-PVS8 which attaches to the helmet...whoopie my helm now weighs upwards of friggin FIFTEEN lbs.
Getting past all that...how the hell is the average soldier going to contribute to overall battlefield planning? Does he really need to know where the company commander is during a firefight? That's why we have NCOs...
Hope our new Army is rife with Arnold type bodies and Einstein brains...
As it stands, civilians, necessarily mostly unprotected from the benefits of technology, are going to represent the majority of casualties in 'armed conflict'. I'm the only one to think that this is perverse?
SWAT teams do, yes. Most cops carry only a pistol with them, but speical units like SWAT teams need more firepower. PArt of it is simply the threat of overwhelming force can often difuse a situation. If a gunman is faced with 10 heavily armed SWAT members, they are much mroe likely to give up than if they are faced with one normal officer. However, part of having that threat is the need to be ready if you get called out on it. It wouldn't do any good to have guns that just LOOK scary, they need to be powerful as well.
The day we allow robots to fight our battles is the day there will be no end to war.
IF you wany peace, then you have to make those responsible for the induction of it responsible for it's enactment. How? All the heads of the government and their immediate familes must serve in the war on "front-line" combat situations. None of this rear suppoert unit, or carrier duty. Every Senator, Representative, President and the Cabinet, along with their spouses and children must take up arms and fight for the cause.
This centuries old system of old men sending young men to thier deaths, for the benefit of the old men has just got to stop.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
You mean you couldn't find a trash can on the underground, because, unlike certain countries who have only found out that terrorism is real in the last couple of years, we've been dealing with it for decades.
Funny, I never heard Americans make snide comments about people in New York over-reacting - maybe it's not terrorism unless it happens to America?
Score:-1, Funny