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DIY Ordnance Disposal With An RC Truck
kpw10 writes "My company, Tackle Design, put together a do it yourself ordnance disposal robot for use by one of the partners in our company, currently serving in Iraq. It is a very simple solution costing only about $1,000, but it performs the same functions as the super-expensive robots issued by the military. We looking to see if we can get more of these devices over there - particularly as the treat of IEDs seems to be on the rise. We're also looking into including more advanced cameras and other types of sensors including explosives detectors (MEMS and SAW based) as well as RF detectors."
Defend all zigs.. or something.
(Hey, it's Slashdot. You're not getting my A material here.)
I didn't know that IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) were a treat. How did they taste?
StrayByte.Net
RC Car + Wireless Camera?
Whats the groundbreaking part of this? That they shipped it to Iraq!?
Well?
Anyone else had to immediately think of that truck in Knight Rider (I think it was called Goliath) when he read the headline? :-)
The first glaring problem with this is the use of a radio controled device in close proximity to ordinance. One of the first things they tell you, and continue to repeatedly tell you, about situations with IED's and UXO's (Unexploded Ordinance) is NOT to use any radios or electrical devices for an area around them. Presumably these "overly expensive" robots used by the experts are not just expensive for kicks, but, among other things, have sheilding and control systems to counter this danger.
A do it yourself aproach is admirable in a lot of situations, however, when dealing with military and terrorist style explosives, It seems doubtful that's the time to employ the pioneering spirit. The EOD guys are there for a reason, and this is one case where patience is a virtue.
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
and $1 million in bribes to the department of defence to get them to actually buy the things.
Oh the wonders of off the self modern technology, with some clever people it closes the gap to the big boys mighty fast eh!
IEDs really are a treat aren't they? I love it when I find one in my garden...
I think they mean ordnance, not ordinance. Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine, along with affect/effect, its/it's, etc.
Dr Superlove 300ml. I use my powers for awesome
...this typo in the article:
We looking to see if we can get more of these devices over there - particularly as the treat of IEDs seems to be on the rise
Emphasis mine.
"We looking to see if we can get more of these devices over there - particularly as the treat of IEDs seems to be on the rise. We're also looking into including more advanced cameras and other types of sensors including explosives detectors (MEMS and SAW based) as well as RF detectors."
Looks to me like "Safe Triggering From a Distance" would be more useful. Explode the explosives before they can get close enough to explode you. Drive by? Oops, you exploded too far away. Roadside? Didn't we set you off about a mile back?
uh - no, that's Rice-a-Roni isn't it?
I forgot rice doesn't explode. Sorry.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It needs to be milspec in order for the military to use it, especially in a combat situation. It will take you a long long time to get this device approved and assigned a milspec number. I mean, like, years. I really hope the war is over before then. But it looks like Bush will just start up another war, so you may be in luck.
Also, the military generally only does business with military contractors. This is starting to change, at least in principal. There has been a recent push for COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) purchases, to save money, but there is still a huge amount of paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with. They are going to have to take your robot and freeze it, bake it, irradiate it, EMP it, and maybe even shoot at it. All at great taxpayer expense.
I salute you and your idea, but you should be forewarned about the effort involved. Also, my experience with this is limited. My close friend designed a rebreather that was almost assigned a milspec number by the US Navy. After several years and millions of dollars in testing and a final report approving the rebreather, the navy decided to stick with it's current model. I suspect this had something to do with internal politics that I should not even speculate on. Basically, my friend had put two years of his life into this, had a better machine which outperformed and way underpriced the competition, was one signature away from a milspec number assignment, and suddenly he got the silent treatment.
So, basically, I'm saying Be prepared for a lot of red tape. Oh, and you may need to be ISO 9001 certified. Which is basically another form of red tape.
I was thinking more of the modified RC-10 that was chasing Clint Eastwood around in The Dead Pool. But then, that was more for ordinance delivery, not removal.
Isn't that going to piss off my city council, though? I mean, they seem to work so hard passing the things in the first place...
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I really enjoyed reading this advertisement.
(Score:2, Funny)
that should be (Score:-2, Punny)
Does anyone else find it depressing that US services personnel seem to be increasingly buying their own equipment?
I had already heard stories of soldiers' families investing in flak-jackets/body armour to give them additional protection, and i believe i recall even from Gulf War I that soldiers were bringing their own GPS kit.
Now they're putting together their own, affordable, bomb-disposal robots. I admire the initiative, but deplore the circumstances that make it necessary. Especially since the fact that a soldier/marine and his/her family can invest in the equipment means it is relatively inexpensive. If many soldiers buy it, it's *probably* useful too. So how come the government doesn't provide it?
Putting on a cynicism hat, i wonder if it is because they'd rather spend high-margin-megabucks on a few robots from InsertHugeSupplierHere, than divert a fraction of that to buy larger volume cheaper alternatives.
What happens when the bad guys read slashdot and decide to make a jammer for the little remote controlled toy? Loose lips sink ships.
I cannot believe how stupid these guys are.
They are using wireless communications and unshielded electronics near suspected bomb devices. Bombs that are set off wirelessly.
A more serious concern is their DIY approach to bomb disposal. Do they really want to risk death or courtmartial for DIY? If they see a suspect device, then they should call the professionals in.
It means Micro ElectroMechanical System and Surface Acoustic Wave to me, but I'm really not sure. Care to help?
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
High technology counts for about zero in a guerilla war. But to the extent that fiddling with the next gadget takse your mind off the main goal, viz, making yourself liked by the locals, then leaving, it is counterproductive.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
... particularly as the treat of IEDs seems to be on the rise.
;-)
i hardly think anyone views IEDs as a treat
Hi, i'm joe i work in a garage, you know like The Woz, i make internet things that pretty l33t. We'll anyway nerdo, i was thinking one night on the internet and seeing all this news and stuff about iraq and i figured it would be keeno to help our soilders out with a bomb sniffer.
... i mean save, save our billies from retarded terrorists who use bomb.
Yeh so me and a buddy figured we could make million* cough*a modest profit selling these things to help the boys. You know cause the current ones me make now are really expensive, errr, i mean these guys can't buy enough of them maybe the governments not giving them enough money or something to buy them from halib...err... halifornia. You know home of all us geeks and techno companies.
So yeh we would really like you to save us a billion in research... *cough i mean
So if you could just send your ideas too.
Two Guy Garage Defense Company
5 Houston Center
1401 McKinney, Suite 2400
Houston, TX 77010
USA
Two Guy Garage Defense Co. is trademarked by our sponsors.
If you can't fix it ask the 3 year old down the street.
From www.gizmodo.com, "For sponsorship opportunities, Click here to find out more about sponsorship opportunities."
Seing as most IED designs rely on readily available and somewhat volatile substances, surely it would be cheaper and quicker to retire to a safe distance and pummel the IED with a rifle?
I'd expect the energy of a rifle-round hitting a volatile IED would be sufficient to trigger it, if not, tracer could be tried for flame ignition.
Of course, line-of-sight wouldn't always be available and that is where you could use one of these radio control cars for sympathetic detonation.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
While this device will work in a lot of situations, there are actually some damn good reasons that the military pays a lot of money for the EOD systems they buy.
Example one: Intrinsic safety. This is something that's used a lot in fuel and chemical industries. The basic idea is to design the system so that no component that is exposed to the outside world can cause a spark. This is not as straightforward as you might think. And it's definitely a feature I'd want implemented for a robot that's going to be crawling around IEDs.
Example two: Verification. This new system is a great thing-- don't get me wrong-- but it's essentially just a hack. Typical procurement for something like this is going to include a whole series of tests under a LOT of different conditions. This new thing-- well, I'm sure it works just fine in the garage.
Example three: Landline control. One of the key rules when dealing with UXOs (UneXploded Ordnance) is that you never use a radio within a certain distance of the UXO. Hand radios must be at least 25 feet away, car-mounted radios must be at least 100 feet away. This is done because there is a chance that the trigger for a given ordnance might be radio-based. A lot of robots come with landline controls for just that reason. Makes me a little anxious about seeing a radio-controlled truck as the base for an EOD system.
There are other issues, too. Image quality, level of control over the motors, you name it. There's a lot more to ordnance disposal than simply getting a camera up close to the damn thing and sending back a picture.
That said, a system like this probably WILL work in the majority of cases, especially in Iraq. I just don't think it'll ever be adopted by the military, despite its obvious usefulness.
For those of you who don't know, it should be "ordnance" rather than "ordinance".
From www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: ordinance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s, 'or-d&n-&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging, from Medieval Latin ordinantia, from Latin ordinant-, ordinans, present participle of ordinare to put in order -- more at ORDAIN
1 a : an authoritative decree or direction : ORDER b : a law set forth by a governmental authority; specifically : a municipal regulation
2 : something ordained or decreed by fate or a deity
3 : a prescribed usage, practice, or ceremony synonym see LAW
Main Entry: ordnance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ordinaunce, from Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging
1 a : military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment b : a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance
2 : CANNON, ARTILLERY
We now return to our regularly scheduled flamewars.
"Feel a glory in so rolling / on the human heart a stone" --E. A. Poe, "The Bells"
One of the first things they tell you, and continue to repeatedly tell you, about situations with IED's and UXO's (Unexploded Ordinance) is NOT to use any radios or electrical devices for an area around them.
The first glaring problem with your post is that twice you used the term "ordinance" when referring to explosives and munitions. Not once did you make mention of "ordnance", so that is telling.
Do you know what an "Ordinance" is?
Here's the definition.
2. A custom or practice established by long usage.
3. A Christian rite, especially the Eucharist.
4. A statute or regulation, especially one enacted by a city government.
Do you know what "Ordnance" is?
Here's the definition.
2. The branch of an armed force that procures, maintains, and issues weapons, ammunition, and combat vehicles.
3. Cannon; artillery.
Even giving you the benefit of the doubt, because the summary of TFA calls it "Ordinance Disposal", I still smell bullshit.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yes, we need that. Our municipalities have far too many ordinances.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
This will get somebody killed. Let EOD do the job correctly
Saying they do the same thing is like saying a red wagon does the same thing as a Challenger MkII tank.
kibishii-na.
They can't spell "material" so why should I trust them, over a Slashdot editor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materiel
As I understand it, the best way to clear a field of land mines is to clear the people out and start exploding the mines. Add a metal detector to the truck and a transmitter to relay the signal back, and this might be a good tool for clearing some kinds of land mines.
I'm sure I'm missing something, of course.
Essentially all these drones are designed to do is part the detonator from the payload of the device (or die in the attempt). The payload usually being several pounds of rusty 'shipyard confetti'. If the detonator is still servicable (i.e. it wasn't built by a complete monkey and has managed to survive the elements until something came along to set it off), then this usually results in our brave bomb disposal robot going to silicon heaven in a loud bang and a hail of rusty nuts and bolts. Not bad for a 1000 bucks a pop or whatever. As long as it can stand up to the elements and being bashed about. As was mentioned previously though I don't really see the American government going for it....not without 2 years of pointless testing and backhanders.....errr corporate donations. However, I do see private contractors buying them for their own use. Some of the big commercial hauliers have a greater range of equiptment and (disposable income) than any government army out there. Good luck with it dude.
There is no 'i' in ordnance.
I made myself a commitment to build every do-it-yourself item project on slashdot, I've just started on this one. People keep asking me what it's for, I tell them, now they are starting to look at me kinda funny
...I realize that this wouldn't be practical in, say, populated or build-up areas, but wouldn't it just be cheaper and easier to throw hand grenades at a bomb until it blows up on its own?
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
A number of the posters here have referred to the long design, test and deployment cycle in the military, and in very many cases, their comments are accurate. But, there is a history of wartime hacks thought up by soldiers or people who knew soldiers. A good example from the WWI was the trench periscope. During WWII, Sgt. Curtis Culin welded pieces of steel cannibalized from German beach defenses to make the "Rhino", a tank capable of cutting through the high bushy walls that lined the roads in Normandy. Today, US Reservists and National Guardsmen are figuring out ways of mounting steel plates as armor on their HUMMVs. That soldiers and marines are coming up with field expedient devices external to the Department of Defense R&D system is nothing new. Some of the hacks get incorporated into actual milspec equipment; some doesn't. The DoD has whole organizations dedicated to cataloging and studying these things as "lessons-learned". It will be interesting to see if this idea gets picked up and widely applied in Iraq.
Bureaucracy loves company.
Back in the seventies, a guy in Israel came up with a model plane that was good for blowing up radar stations. It cost about $30k as opposed to the official American version at a half a mil.
First off, a suitable size mesh around the motor may cut inteference - depends on the frequency emitted.
Secondly, it has been noted above that these sort of things are exceedingly dangerous around DYI bombs such as might be found in Iraq. But that is the point of having a drone. Clear the area and send it in. The problem is scatter and proximity. The R/C controllers are transmitters (not receiver's as on the drone) and with cross-talk/miss-aiming could trigger a detonation.
Surely there is a cheap line-of-sight (eg I/R) solution for this?
could have been to use a better radio control platform like a Taymia (cheap) kit with a real 4 channel control unit or higher. This would have given them a better platform with repairable parts and far greater scope of control.
I know the guys aren't trying to make a speed-demon or such but the kit cars do make a much easier platform from which to modify things.
Otherwise, it's a good idea.
Paul.
Bush is talking about?
The next step will be to stop paying the volunteers in the armed forces altogether. I mean guys, stop being greedy, you have the privelege of risking your lives to bring democracy and Halliburton cafeterias to the huddled masses, what more do you want?
'ask not what the New American Century can do for you, ask what you can do for the NAC!.
Approaching a problem from a "as cheap as possible" DYI angle will often lead to technological improvements, too. If you're on a budget you tend to make sure things just work and in order for them to just work (ie. not break) you have to keep things simple.
After watching last week's "CSI: New York" episode (click here for a synopsis), I was pretty impressed with the idea of having a robot lift prints from an explosive ordinance before detonating it. Turns out that robot really exists and was build as a DYI project by a Canadian law enforcement officer.
To what end? For home protection? Having grown up in a socialist nanny state, I've never quite understood how having guns at home would make one safer. Criminals will know that you're armed, so the logical step is to get a bigger gun and to be more inclined to use it. Who do you think will win in this arms-race?
The owls are not what they seem
They're having a severe problem with new home owner's associations creating ridiculous ordinances, and this robot is designed to edit the bylaws in such a way as to totally obliterate those ordinances!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The only reason I can fathom Bush starting another war is due to national security based in intelligence gathering.
Sorry am I to have to remind everyone but the reasons given for the "imminent threat" of this war were matters of national security based on (faulty) intelligence gathering. Call me a cynic, but if another war is wanted from the White house; I'm sure another intelligence mistake will be made and an excuse - like nation building, or toppling an unsympathetic dictator - will be proffered afterwards.
I'm not quite so humble.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.sco.com/
I had this pointed out to me, subtle, but fantastic
This brings up the interesting question: Anyone have any good tips for people who want to start building their own robots?
Personally, I'm specifically interested in interfacing an rc remote and my computer. I did a little searching on google, but the only thing I found was a serial-port-to-rc connector for a specific brand of rc car (and it was a bit steep at $500). Has anyone done this for under $100?
One senior military analyst, whose job was precisely to find out why equipment did not perform as expected, described it to me as major's logic and sergeant's logic. The Major says, we do it by the book. The patrol goes out and the sergeant says, we'll do it this way, lads, because the official way doesn't fucking work. Then he reports back to the major that the mission was accomplished and everything went by the book. And the major, if he wants to be a colonel, doesn't ask stupid questions. The hard bit is to get through the official chain of command wall to find out what really happens on the ground, investigate the good bits, and turn them into an official solution.
Faced with a choice between certainly getting killed and trying something that might save you, armed forces everywhere become inventive. People bleating on about "No RF near potential booby traps" miss the point. The people on the ground are likely to have a pretty good idea of enemy capability. They might be wrong, occasionally, but that is better than having being dead most of the time. War is not a computer game, and it is not played according to neat rules by any of the sides involved. The hard bit is to strike the right balance between discipline and flexibility, and this must change from conflict to conflict.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Who needs robots to dispose of ordnance when you can just throw stones at it?
(To dispose of ordinance, you need a lawyer. On second thoughts, that would work with ordnance, too...)
An umbilical could also be used to winch the unit back out of trouble.
Another shortcoming from the protoype show in the article is that it rides high and is SOL if it rolls over. Probably better to design the vehicle so that it works with either side up.
It's one thing to laugh at the price of the competitors, but it's a good idea to find out what that price does and doesn't cover.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
What, no big Type-R stickers?
You don't need any RC ordnance trucks in Iraq. The most effective technology is simply getting out of there NOW
Oh, and if you're going into combat, which would you prefer:
A M-16 barely newer than Vietnam, built by the lowest bidder, that you've shot twice in the last month.
A M-16 built by a company like Rock River Arms, tuned for reliability, having a two stage trigger, with guarenteed 1 MOA accuracy, and shot by you at the range every weekend?
I don't read AC A human right
> And it is much better than putting human life in danger.
Human life costs a hell of a lot less than $1000, however.
Making solders pay for their own equipment will help shift the burden of paying for a war to the people who actually support it.
Hey, in my book, anything that makes it harder for a country to kill people is fuckin' great.
You must work for the government.
The case proposed here of a UXO disposal robot is rather different, it is something that may breakdown but if it is cheap enough to throw away when a bomb goes off and a soldier's life is saved, then wtf, go for it.
Note that the initial British remote controlled vehicles were like this one and for checking out only. These were quite simple. Later models featuring the shotgun had to be a *lot* more robust (if only to handle the recoil).
If low power radio transmissions were so effective at blowing up these devices, why don't they just add a radio transmitter to the truck and drive it through the mine fields? Hell, climb into a foxhole and turn on a high power tranmitter before for a minute before you drive this thing around.
And the devices they are talking about are anti-personnel mines and the like. They don't have a huge range.
... and our Troops^H^H^H^H^H^HOrcs.
The following is from a Bruce Cockburn song circa 1983:
If I Had a Rocket Launcher
here comes the helicopter -- second time today
everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
how many kids they've murdered only God can say
if i had a rocket launcher...i'd make somebody pay.
i don't believe in guarded borders and i don't believe in hate
i don't believe in generals or their stinking torture states
and when i talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
if i had a rocket launcher...i would retaliate
on the rio lacantun one hundred thousand wait
to fall down from starvation -- or some less humane fate.
cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
if i had a rocket launcher...i would not hesitate
i want to raise every voice -- at least i've got to try.
every time i think about it water rises to my eyes.
situation desperate echoes of the victims cry
if i had a rocket launcher...some sonofabitch would die
Sounds like something Burt Gummer came up with a few years ago.
Science is the Real TRUTH!
The ciminal wants to make a living. He doesn't want to risk getting shot. If you're a burgler, which home would you enter first: The one with the "Gun Free Home" Sign, or the one with the NRA sticker?
Heck, I have a sticker that says "Gun control means hitting your target" and a Citizen's Committie for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms lifetime member sticker. CCRKBA is a group for those who think that the NRA is too compromising.
Besides, unless the homeowner is living in a very bad area, the odds are that he'll never have a break-in while he or she is home, much less have multiple ones. Once a criminal is dead, he's not commiting any more crimes. There are far more homeowners than burglers/muggers/rapists/thugs. If you flipped a coin everytime a burglery happened, and killed the one that loses, there would very quickly be no more burglers. It'd be too expensive.
I'd much rather live in a place where the entire "whoever-shoots-whomever-else-first-wins" discussion is moot...
Sure, I'd love to live in a place with no criminals. Well, I live in North Dakota, so it comes close. But I'm also a realist. The gun ban in England & Australia hasn't disarmed the criminals. In areas where they get really psycho the criminals move to knives, hammers, and baseball bats and target the elderly and weak more. Heck, think about it, firearms have been around for hundreds of years. Give me access to a hardware store and I can build a blackpowder weapon, to include making the powder and balls. Given the resources of the drug black market and some better tools, and I can churn out smokeless powder (commercialized in the 1800's), rounds, and machine guns. Heck, in afgahnistan there is a town that makes AK-47's by hand without power tools!
So in a sense it is moot. The criminal wins, as he has the gun/weapon and you don't. At least I have the chance. Thus, the criminal types leave ND and move to Chicago or New York.
Ask yourself this: Why is it that on average, the areas with the most gun control have the most crime?
I don't read AC A human right
The word is "Ordnance" not "Ordinance".
20 years ago, true, but I was a Combat Engineer in the Marine Corps.
In a perfect world, you call up the Engineers, and they handle it. In peacetime you may even be able to call up the EOD guys to handle it. In war, they're never around when you want them. But we usually are.
True, as pointed out, you don't want a lot of stray RF around, esp. since these IEDs are mostly controlled by your car alarm system key fob. However, if your frequencies are not in that range, it won't set it off.
If it does set it off? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! That's what we do! We are not some movie or TV show hero who defuses the bomb! Most of the time we prefer to set it off in place to eliminate the threat.
If these little robots can lug a block of C4 up to the IED, and either get away before the C4 is set off, (prefered) or sacrifice itself and get rid of it, good job! I've almost pissed my pants doing the same thing, hoping that the device wouldn't go off when I touched it.
To sum up: in war, it's not about defusing, it's about detonating (safely) so the mission can continue!
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
Leave it to a college gamer to think of attaching explosives to remote control cars and actually using them in a military situation. Best case the car drops the a little bomb to take care of the land mine. Worst case the land mine blows up a few hundred dollars of electronics. It is a hell of a lot better than blowing up the combat engineer. Citoahc P.S. Most landmines/roadside bombs don't use RF. Why use expensive electronics that requires someone there when they can use a pressure sensor.
I think this is the correct link...
advertising.slashdot.org
There's one potential problem:
:)
The attacker takes control of your RC truck, and drives it over to the bomb disposal squad's area and dets the C4 charge.
Bwahahaha..
Not likely of course, but it's always something to consider. If they ever figure out the frequencies you are using they could just blow it up ASAP, which makes it deadlier.
Workaround is to have a mechanism to prevent detonation for at least 1 minute after the unit is deployed, or requiring the unit to be immobile for 1 minute, before the detonation can be triggered (then at least you have 1 minute to destroy/disarm the bot before the attacker detonates it).
I find the following on topic
Captain: What happen?
Operator: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You!!
Cats: How are you gentlemen!!
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say!!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Cats: Ha Ha Ha Ha ….
Captain: Take off every "zig."
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move "zig".
Captain: For great justice.
Milspec was dieing. Overall the military is heading to a COTS philosophy, in part because it has become increasingly hard to replace those milspec equipment, due to the accelerated pace of technology development. As a case for this, go look up things like the Army's RFI (Rapid Fielding Inititative) PMO. They are getting the latest equipment out to the field in the shortest time possible. Another good example would be the early introduction of the Global Hawk (which was still in testing/pre-production phase when it was deployed to the field) and the armed Predator varients. Or for example on Navy warships where the latests versions/refits are being provided technology that can be easily replaced as technology walks forward.
Now that said, there is still a fair amount of red tape, but it isn't as bad as it used to be.
A number of troops in the Iraq AOR have taken distinct advantage of the very phenomenon you describe.
Some troops figured out that the terrorists were using circuit boards taken out of locally sold radio-controlled cars to detonate their IEDs. The troops began equiping the lead vehicles in their convoys with transmitters that continually broadcast on these frequencies.
There's a link here with some details.
The terrorists are also using cell-phones, FRS radios, and HAM gear to set these things off... those pictures were taken in Fallujah from the terrorists' IED workshops.
Sometimes broadcasting on the bomb-detonating frequencies isn't a bad thing, particularly if you've already found a suspect device, or are already at a safe distance. Pity the unfortunate souls who radio for help when the suspect device is right at their feet...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
materiel or matériel: The equipment, apparatus, and supplies of a military force or other organization.
material: The substance or substances out of which a thing is or can be made.
Amazing what you can do if you research before you post.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
It's ordanance not ordinace. Unless you mean to remove strange municipal regulations....?
Many IEDs in Iraq are manufactured out of old artillery shells (the country is awash in them). They're readily available, have fusing apparatus already attached, and have a frangible metal shell that produces plenty of shrapnel. As a bonus, They're relatively safe to handle, and even rookie terrorists can drop one next to a roadway and run.
.50 caliber Barrett rifles . An incendiary .50 caliber round will make short work of many IEDs and other ordnance.
Why bother with something volatile or percussion sensitive? Nitro? Picrates? You'd kill more of your buddies handling that stuff than you would kill intended targets.
Plastic explosive is also used, but you typically can't set that off just by shooting it. Most plastic explosives are fairly insensitive to percussion, and require some sort of chaining, or booster explosive to set them off (like a blasting cap attached to some detonation cord, for instance).
Burning is an idea, since most plastic explosives will burn... but you could do that by simply soaking it in diesel fuel and lighting it up (old dynamite is sometimes disposed of in this way)... you might not even need tracers.
Conceptually, though, I like the way you think... far better to sit back at a safe distance and light it up with a rifle. The EOD guys do something similar to this with the
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Most "repurposible" radio receivers use one or more local oscillators in their circuits to "down convert" the RF signal into a range more easily demodulated. This involves locally generating a RF signal of a certain frequency and mixing it in with the incoming signal in a non-linear device.
/. article.
These local oscillator signals "leak out" of the reciever and can be detected remotely. The existence of these leaks is why radio recievers are not allowed on airplanes and are a way in which unlicensed television sets are detected in countries which require them to be licensed.
I presume this process is what is being eluded to by the reference to RF detectors at the end of the
I am surprised that RF detection methods are not in service already (if they would work). Perhaps Iraq is a very RF noisy place and RF analysis is only as useful as metal detection - there would be so many false alarms from cell phones, TV sets, sparking power line insulators, etc., that it really would not help.
30 inch rats?!
Are these things the ROUSes from The Princess Bride?
Actually, the huge ego of the EOD command in Iraq has prevented technology like this and more mature, production ready equipment from being used. In Afghanistan, they use a laser to cook the explosive device until it blows up. In fact, they have a 100% success rate with this machine. But EOD has prevented it from being used in Iraq. So, it's not just, "employing the pioneering spirit," it's saving our soldiers lives and their limbs from destruction.
We already have a machine that uses a laser to destroy explosive devices deployed in Afghanistan. Itoperates with a 100% success rate. However, the EOD in Iraq have prevented its deployment. So, you not only have to deal with odd military requirements, you have to deal with the huge ego of EOD.
Now now, we'll never get the job done if we start questioning whether we should be doing it at all. What's important is that we're strong, decisive, and hit them hard to let them know who is boss. In these times of war it's no good to ask such distracting questions. After all, once you start with your penatrating questions, there's no telling where it will end. Question the efficacy of battling these terrorists who hate Freedom, and you might as well question the good Christian motives of our leader. Our leader, with his God-given mandate to fight evil at home and abroad. You wouldn't want to be so unamerican and unchristian would you?
I wouldn't be too proud of your company if I were you. Any business that assists the war effort is immoral (regardless of how novel or "cool" your technology is). The best way to keep people from getting killed by IED's is to withdraw all troops immediately. The US has no right to occupy Iraq and companies like yours simply make it easier for the war to continue--meaning more lives lost on both sides.
--Nick
hear hear!
--Nick
Assuming line of sight between operator and robot, rip out the RF circuitry and replace with IR sensors and use an IR laser for the communications -- relatively cheap and no RF spillover.
Probably not heavy enough to set them off. IED's are a pain enough, being able to take out vehicles & passangers, that measures such as this are good.
For a minefield, you bring out the flail-tank.
I don't read AC A human right
I'm sure that the final device will use something like this. This is the prototype/proof of concept.
If they get a contract to build a few thousand of these, I'm sure they'll be buying parts in bulk from various companies.
I don't read AC A human right
seems handy but if the device is detonated by remote control it may not be the best idea to use an rc device in the area...
Get your torrents...
Yay!
I work for the company that makes that R/C model (Traxxas), and we get calls every week from LEOs and military outfits that are currently using the models for EOD and other purposes.
We didn't design the platform with this use in mind, but it seems to be used that way a lot.
Just talked to a Navy lab this morning, matter of fact.
..."milspec" would go away REALLY fast. Look on the other side. They're fighting for their lives and you can believe that those IEDs are not going through an extensive and expensive certification process. All that red tape is there basically to make sure that only the right snouts are in the trough.