Slashdot Mirror
Listening Robot Senses Snipers
Dr. Eggman writes "Popular Science has a brief piece on the RedOwl, a brainy-looking flightless robot that can 'read a nametag from across a football field and identify the make and model of a rifle fired a mile away simply by analyzing the sound of the distant blast.' For a paltry $150,000, the machine utilizes robotic hearing technology originally developed by Boston University's Photonics Center to improve hearing aids to sense a shot fired and pinpoint its source, identify it as a hostile or friendly weapon, and illuminate the target with a laser visible only with night vision. The RedOwl, built on an iRobot packbot platform and controlled via a modified Xbox videogame controller, can figure out the location of a target 3,000 feet away, allowing troops to call in a precision air strike."
I saw something like this on TV a few years ago. There were some security contractors in Iraq who had a similar device that determined range and vector to gunshots. I don't remember it having the laser designator, but other than that, it was pretty much the exact same thing.
First, anything to help our troops identify and kill those directly responsible for carrying out attacks on them is a huge benefit. I think counter-snipers are the best solution, but they're few and far between. A ground assault on the building would be a lower-key response, but much more risky to American lives. Precision air strikes are a safer alternative to an assault, but as you point out they cause casualties and are visible reminders of the occupation. But letting a sniper live is never the right answer.
The civilians don't care much if Americans kill insurgents, as long as they only kill insurgents. You have to understand that most of the Iraqis are completely sick of the war. They don't care who's fighting whom, who's blowing up whom, they just want it done, they want us out, they want the insurgents to stop.
Unfortunately, "making nice" isn't going to help. There is only a tiny group of people who are responsible for what's happening. They have adopted religion to carry out their agenda, and the power structure of Islam (imams have the local authority to decree whatever they want) makes it pathetically easy for them to subvert it to their own ends by convincing a few crazy fundamentalist imams to follow them. They use attacks for recruitment (as you point out, if the attacks stopped recruitment would drop.) But the attacks don't stop, because the leaders of the insurgency don't want them stopped. For example, the latest rounds of bombing in Baghdad have been in markets serving all faiths; Sunnis, Shiites and Christians all died from the same bomb blast. It's pretty obvious to an outside observer that the goal isn't "kill the Shiites or kill the Sunnis"; instead it's "kill civilians to pressure America and foster more hatred." And it's also become more apparent to everyone that the insurgency has always been coming from Iran. The Iraqis have no particular desire to see their country bombed into the sixth century, but the Iranian "revolutionary guards" don't have to live there, now, do they?
John
Spread spectrum is more about anti-jamming, anti-listning and noise reduction than it is about hiding the transmitter. To triangulate, all you have to do is have a wide bandwidth receiver to listen to the entire military band. With today's DSP technology, you can probably triangulate on a spread spectrum transmitter quite easily.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!