Slashdot Mirror
Military Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "DefenseLINK News is reporting that 'troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.' By simply holding the portable, handheld device named a "Radar Scope" up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing. The Radar Scope hopes to eventually give troops the ability to see up to 50 feet beyond a concrete wall to decrease losses in urban combat."
... as the beeps get nearer and nearer... then THEY should be in to room... look UP to the false ceiling!!!!
Forget military use (killing), how would this work as a survivor searching tool (saving lives) after earthquakes and such? I bet DARPA won't let us "private secor" folk make it useful though. You know: "because people could use it for terror and someone might be killed by that terrorist. Save lives wih a weapon - stupid liberals"
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Magic.
For anyone interested, do a google on Terahertz Imaging.
Once the transmission technology comes down in price it's going to be great for the 'metal detecting' hobbyists. No more digging up rubbish. You'll be able to see the object. This is one technology that I cant wait for!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
oh my god america is tottally wallhacking, kickban them from the server
*kicked from international conflict*
(someone had to say it)
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Keep in mind, the eggheads at DARPA (they paid me once, too) would love nothing better than to actually tell their families what they do for a living.
Imagine something like the quakes in Turkey or Iran, and they could find survivors from under the concrete slabs. Kids could point to the TV and say "my daddy made that!"
Don't confuse politicians with individuals.
This is hardly innovative. It's one of the first things you can research in X-Com, and that game came out in like 1992!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
It would also be a good publicity tool, and the military is perfectly capable of using those (and, I might add, comprised of much better people than the grandparent apparently believes). Look at the thousands of lives they saved with relief efforts in the wake of the South Asian tsunami, among any number of similar incidents. Much of the technology used for that operation was developed with military purposes in mind, too (ships capable of creating water onboard, worldwide logistics systems which are "fault tolerant" when the fault involves literally wiping entire cities off the map, helicopter airlift of supplies and medevac, the best first responder medical teams in the world, etc).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I would like to know if the testing environments included many animals in the buildings. In many places in this world, people keeps poultry and other livestock inside their homes. As they are so sensitive, will these devices be fooled by rats inside the building? Or even flies? This thing could give so many false positives in real use as to be almost useless.
Seeing it from the point of view of a guerrilla fighter, now you would have an easy way of luring troops into your traps by simply putting a dog in the building. When the troops come, the booby trap explodes. Or better than a dog, use a man, seeing how low the own human life is regarded by some of the latests fighters-against-freedom groups.
It's perhaps just me but I'm a bit tired of this way of presenting technology as the key that will solve the problems of the military in guerrilla environments. Organization, training and motivation are in my humble point of view, much more important. But you cannot show them off so easily in a presentation, I suppose.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
This is an ultrawideband through-wall imaging system, and is an old technology that has been around for many years. Two of the many manufacturers are Time Domain [Flash!] and Camero.
Note that, while military radio emissions are regulated in the U.S. by the NTIA, U.S. civilian use of ultrawideband through-wall imaging systems is controlled by the FCC (by regulations established in April 2002 [pdf!]). 47 U.S.C. 15.510(5)(e) [pdf!] states that
Basically, and as defined by rules elsewhere, it's illegal even to possess one in the U.S. if you're not a first-responder type.No, fuck you, you piece of shit armchair patriot. I served in the Marine Corps, so don't tell me about taking care of our troops. I scavenged parts from the trash to make working equipment, because working equipment wasn't in the budget. Wanna talk about extreme case modding? I saw guys design and build electronic test equipment inside old suitcases because we couldn't get real stuff. Our aircraft were so old that the parts to maintain them simply weren't made anymore. Yet those same aircraft are still flying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
OMG WALLHACK!!
Microwaves. Very high powered, narrowly focused microwaves. You switch the unit on, put it to the wall, and if you hear a loud "OWWWWWWW!" from the other side of the wall, there's someone there.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
SUITCASES??? YOU LUCKY BASTARD!! We only had rucksacks! I had to scavenge parts from the sewer to get it working, because working equipment wasn't in the budget, and our equipment was a 486 and a gumball machine. Our aircraft were mainly comprised of half a stolen Russian MiG, and an old Lada.
The Americans always think there's some sort of magical technical solution to something they have always been extremely crap at - guerilla warfare.
.run away! Run away!
.France and Mssr. Lafayette), but it seems it has forgotten its own history.
It is one of history's little ironies that later events have overclouded the fact that Benedict Arnold was one of the most brilliant leaders of guerilla warfare in history.
The capturing of Fort Ticonderoga in order to procure its cannon and how those cannon subsequently made their way to Boston. The Battle of Beemis Hights (I spent last night in the home of Gen. Philip Schyler who deployed Benedict in that action). Coming, literally, within yards of conquering Canada for America (and would have done so but for the lack of a pair of walkie-talkies).
Washington weren't half bad either. Why did he cross the Deleware (in secret, at night, in winter when such a move couldn't be expected)? To attack the endentured rear guard holding a barracks after the main army had marched out and then . .
America once stood as the object model for how guerilla fighters in a third world country could stand up to and prevail over a superpower (with a wee bit of help from . .
Not to mention its raison e'tre.
KFG
Mod parent up.
a y#Brief_history LCDsi cation_gp.htm#The%20Defence%20Industry Flat Panel Loudspeakers (and many others)
I'll add to that list; the automotive industry is full of them. First of all there's the night-vision cameras (arguably invented by the Germans pre WWII), radar parking aids, and heads-up displays.
At home you can cook using a microwave oven (invented by a researcher at Raytheon), which probably itself uses a Liquid Crystal Display (much of the development of which was done at the UK Radar Research Establishment at Malvern, formerly the Army Radar Establishment). Or maybe you'd like to listen to some music on a set of flat-panel loudspeakers (offshoot of research done by the British DERA into quiet 'stealth' helicopters).
A list like this could go on practically forever; in fact it's hard to find a product -- any product -- which hasn't been touched by military R&D at some point in its history. To be honest, dollar for dollar, I think it is quite possible that the American public (and other countries too, but particularly the U.S. because we consume so much technology) gets as much if not more out of the money spent on military research by contractors, than we do out of pure research at universities. Not to say that pure research doesn't have it's place, and is almost always inventive in nature, military research is usually directed and innovative, and produces useful devices in relatively short timescales.
Take a look around your home, unless you live on an Amish farm, you're probably surrounded by things, the initial development of which were paid for with defense dollars.
References:
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/ir.htm Infrared and Night Vision Scopes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_displ
http://www.mod.uk/issues/diversification/diversif
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."