Listening Robot Senses Snipers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday January 18, 2007 @02:46PM from the careful-what-you-say dept.

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."

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Re:Real evidence... by drsquare · 2007-01-18 15:40 · Score: 1, Troll

This robot is exactly the wrong approach to be taking in a counterinsurgency.
So if this robot detects a sniper, so people can hide and avoid being assassinated, this is a bad thing? Perhaps you're prefer it if people didn't know about snipers and got shot?

I'm sure if there was a sniper trying to kill you, you'd like to know about it.