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The Quintessential Sentry Gun

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the deadly-secure dept.

mollyhackit writes "Aaron and Ezra built an automatic sentry gun using an airsoft gun, some hobby servos and a webcam.The camera automatically identifies and tracks targets. They tested it on each other to make sure it worked; video included!"

7 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. awesome by Madd+Scientist · · Score: 4, Interesting
    wow, one of the first times i've clicked a "video included" link that actually worked. nice server.

    their image processing is pretty much perfect, so i'm assuming they took some liberties such as assuming the target is wearing a bright white shirt. show me this thing firing on someone in camo.

  2. Just a hunch... by 0rionx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm guessing that here in the U.S. you probably wouldn't be able to get away with keeping one of those in your home or business, since booby-trapping of any kind is illegal in almost every state: http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=87 On the other hand, usually one is only held liable for injuries caused by a booby trap on one's property, so I suppose with some modification this could make for a nice non-dangerous way to deter burglars and such.

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    1. Re:Just a hunch... by ari_j · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Don't listen to cop friends about the law - cops know how to police, not how to answer legal questions. That said, this one got it right. And it's not just due to injuring yourself, but because it is indiscriminate in who it shoots. The law tends to refer to "spring guns" as they were usually set up using a string, a spring, and a gun pointed at a window or a gate. What happened too often were situations where you set it up to catch a burglar, but some kid loses his baseball in your yard and gets his leg blown off.

      Somewhere in this thread, someone asked about a "Trespassers Will Be Shot" sign. While such a sign is a nice warning, you still have to do the shooting, yourself. An indiscriminate shooting machine is not acceptable, because not all entries of your property that you didn't personally authorize are truly trespassing - the kid with the baseball is questionable as to necessity to retrieve his property, but it could be grandma, the police, a lost Jesuit, or your wife.

      There has to be a human conscience that decides whether or not to pull the trigger. Now, if you added face-recognition software, you could make the argument that it is not indiscriminate in what it shoots at, but I think that the law would be very reluctant to agree with you and you'd mostly be making that argument to Bubba to try to confuse him enough that he loses his erection.

  3. "If we stand still it can't see us..." by ecko3437 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is awesome. I am already excited at the idea of building several of these and having a large scale airsoft battle in my woods behind my house over several acres.

    Though, I wonder how well it tracks for people who aren't wearing white ;) If I'm wearing camo or something and I'm out in the woods, will it pick me up? If I'm wearing a green shirt and its out on my lawn will it still target me or maybe just my pants?

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    -Eric Smith
  4. Now what would be cool... by scovetta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Colleges have that robo-cup competition. I think they could get a little more advanced with something like this. Each team has a bunch (maybe 10) autonomous vehicles that have a webcam, paintball gun, laptop, battery, etc. Capture the flags, robot-style.

    I'd tune it to watch that on TV. Until the robots get smarter and take over the world. We wouldn't have a chance. Until their batteries died, at least.

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    Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
  5. What a wonderful device for farmers! by t0qer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I grew up on several orchards as a kid. We were pretty much encouraged to wander the cherry, prune orchards from the age of 6 and shoot anything that moves.

    There's other devices for scaring off varmints. Natural predators like hawks, percussion guns, dogs, sprinkler systems connected to motion detectors, but nothing quite as eleborate and precise as this.

    The only downside I see it that the BB's aren't biodegradable, but why do they have to be made out of plastic? Perhaps a system that delivers fertalizer pellets and or water. That way you would be scaring off birds as well giving the plants nutrients.

    This may have been a crazy tangent of a post, but I'm just throwing out a possible commercial app for this if folks are looking for it.

  6. Re:The Army will be all over this by The+Evil+Couch · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I can't speak for every piece of the Army, but I know we have remote controled machineguns in various calibers. best I know of is a .50 cal that gets mounted to the top of a HMMWV, so that the gunner doesn't have to expose himself to enemy fire at all, that I saw while I was in Iraq. he just sits inside looking at a monitor and controling it with a joystick. I kind of wish I had had one, but we only had the one for our battalion, so I had to shoot threats the old fashioned way.

    I remember reading on some (public, unclassified) site that we have at least prototypes of remote controled robots with various calibers of automatic weapons, ranging from 9mm to 7.62mm.

    I don't think the Army's that interested in completely automated systems, but remote controlled turrets is something Uncle Sam would dig.

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