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Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade
angry tapir writes "Meet the Firefly. Israeli defense contractor Rafael Armament Development Authority calls it a 'revolutionary concept in tactical intelligence,' but really it's a wireless camera that's shot 500 feet in the air by a grenade launcher. And if a couple of hackers at the Defcon hacking convention get their way, soon anyone will be able to buy this type of military grade technology for only US$500."
The only use I can think of is if you want to film an Evil Dead fan made movie.
God spoke to me
that is imagining that this would be much better if the camera was launched via giant sling shot?
You should just buy one of these bad boys.
http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/
Military grade and can stay aloft more than 7.2 seconds, while capturing realtime HD video that can be transmitted to a cool pair of goggles on the ground.
Plus, you can whip it out of a backpack in 10 seconds. :-D Cool!
http://www.draganfly.com/video/gallery/show-single-video.php?video_number=2&product_id=DF-X6&r=837
OK fine. You wait for that to come down to $500 and buy it when it comes out. I'm waiting for the Dow to come down to $5000 and yield 20%. It might not be too long a wait.
Me, I want a tricked-out costume as a suit of futuristic armor to wear on Halloween.
First trick - to keep me nice, comfortable, and dry from temperatures ranging from +50C (in sun w/ humidity) to -40C (in shade) which is about the range of temperature in my city.
Second trick - install a computer system with wifi and/or cellular service plus voice recognition. With a nice display in your helmet you could dial up someone to chat without taking off your costume or check on your favorite blog or update your own.
Third trick - cameras in several locations on your helmet for all-around sight with the option to transmit the feed or pictures to a helmet, outside panel on costume, or to an external device or internet. (your blog?)
Fourth trick -- Music! Speakers on the outside or detachable remotes than can receive tunes or your voice.
Fifth trick -- Modular mounts on several locations for different ideas or to detach remotes to feed back to armor. (With GPS included so you can track them down if someone takes one. lol)
Sixth trick -- 20-60 camera flashes for fun effects singly or to help surprise muggers at night by ruining their night vision.
All this is within realm of doing but not really seen anyone doing it. Anyone seen something similar? What would you add?
more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:
Soldiers shoot it off and for eight glorious seconds it gives them a bird's eye view of the terrain around them, tipping them off to enemy positions. Then it crashes back to earth.
Private citizens can't buy these flying cameras, much less the 40mm grenade launchers used to shoot them. But Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet think they'd be great tools for a search and rescue operation, or maybe a boon to some local police force's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. So they're building their own version and showing off what they've learned at Defcon this week.
of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.
You can't handle the truth.
Seems to me that increasing that 8 seconds of recon should be relatively academic. How about adding a little parachute that could increase hang time immensely? Also, perhaps adding a gps transmitter would allow for reuse.
The Admin and the Engineer
having 6 cameras attached so you can cam all ways , then rush your enemy form the best possible angle while hes laughing at your flying camera HAHAHAHA, make it bright colored pink to really get them ....
The Fins have been doing that since 2006. The don't even need a fancy grenade launcher.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
Not really, Israeli murderers are the ones who pay for it...
showed something like this on FutureWeapons a few years ago.
The Israelis sure do a lot of good military tech.
Of course for them it is a necessity, being surrounded by hostile neighbours.
Um, so is the camera supposed to survive the impact, like to get it inside a building? Or does it explode, allowing you to see who you're about to kill?
It seems like kite photography (or videography) would be far more cost-effective for civilian purposes.
Build your own camera and throw it in the air like a grenade: $500
Smoke some weed and lie down for a while: ???
Build a grenade and use it to take a photograph: Priceless.
Shhh. Let him rant for a while. Once he's done explaining how the Jews control the world, the banking system, etc., etc., ask him why he doesn't convert.
You can currently get a remote controlled helicopter based camera that has a run time of 10+ mins.
Granted the training time is higher but the longer running time, cheaper cost(under $300) and greater capabilities (such as moving back and going in closer) make this a very niche market. The biggest market is going to be the people who want to have a close up view of the thing falling and breaking someones windows.
The new idea turned out to be a lot more viable than the opposite approach: Build Your Own Grenade, Hold It Like a Camera
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Gets you a pretty credible radio controlled airplane/helicopter, better camera, and usually reusable (I think militaries around the world call them UAV or something).
Nice work, wrong approach.
Let's ee... 8 seconds at a time for $500... so if you only put one up every minute for an hour that's... uh.... oh, wait...
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Perhaps it escaped notice, but grenade launchers have rifled barrels, and typically the launched projectile is spinning at 15,000 rpm. There might be some unrifled police models used for tear gas, but these will have horrible accuracy -- perhaps 100ft CEP at 500ft.
A camera on a parachute could be a useful thing, but stopping 15krpm isn't easy or quick, especially with only air. Maybe some DSP would work through the spin, but it will have to have a lot less shutter lag! :)
In the 90's, several programs developed artillery shells that mapped the terrain the shells flew over to a surprisingly usable degree of resolution. There are a lot of images available from these sorts of tests online via Google.
In addition, I helped design a camera that was packaged in a ball. The ball was thrown into a building, and a motorized counterweight moved the ball around more or less randomly. The transmitted video from two separate cameras was used to construct striped images of the interior (rolling down halls, into rooms, under tables, down stairs). Not just any images, however- stripes that overlapped from different vantage points, even points fairly close together, were used to create a 3D model of the environs as much as possible- which turned out to be a surprising percentage (~20% of a very well-mapped apartment became viewable in 3D within about 20 minutes of throwing the ball in through a window).
Ok so where is the video from inside the grenade?
You can buy a 40mm or 37mm flare launcher and strap it to your gun. It looks, acts, behaves, and 'is' a grenade launcher. If you have a grenade in the same building, area, etc. then you have two destructive devices. As long as it only has flares with it, its fine. I assume a camera should be a form of flare or inert projectile (ask the ATF), so these are likely completely legal.
I mean, should not be very hard to build.
AccountKiller
The Army never fields something without figuring how it works with current gear.
This think can be carried like any other grenade ammuniition, and quickly launched from a standard M203 grenade launcher.
Given the standard parts, if it were made in bulk it could cost less than some of the ammunition they currently carry.
Obviously in the case of the Israeli device, using a launcher that soliders are likely already carrying around is a good thing, and that's why they would be willing to deal with the disadvantages of grenade launchers for something like this. (Anything combustion-powered causes very high shocks to whatever is being launched - not a big problem for grenades but more of a problem for cameras.)
If you're no longer assuming "launcher the user probably already has", then things get simpler - a pneumatic launcher would be FAR more readily available and easier to work with than a 37mm flare gun. Look at all the work that's been done with potato cannons and the Pumpkin Chunkin' contest - Significantly higher muzzle velocities can be achieved with far lower barrel pressures and shocks on the projectile with air pressure than combustion. (Pneumatic spudguns universally outclass combustion ones, and no one even tries combustion pumpkin launchers because they always pie long before they can match the big pneumatics in range.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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I want that on /. It looks much more dynamic than the neverending "Working..." spinner.
I can build this for about $25. PVC,hairspray,cheap 9v wireless camera on ebay, GI joe toy parachute.. about 20 years ago, I used to launch my GI joes with my potato launcher, if small Cameras where available I would have launched them too.
Just use a high end toy remote control helicopter.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a collector of NFA weapons myself, I can say that the article is incorrect about private citizens in the US not being able to purchase a 40mm grenade launcher. The 40mm grenade launcher is classified as a Destructive Device (DD) by the BATFE, and is regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, commonly referred to as NFA. All NFA weapons are tracked with mandated registration with the BATFE. Weapons regulated by the NFA are Title 2 weapons (Title 1 weapons are "normal" firearms you see in most gun stores) include Destructive Devices, Suppressors (aka Silencers), machineguns made prior to May 1986, Short Barreled Rifles (SBR), Short Barreled Shotguns (SBS), and lastly the Any Other Weapon (AOW) category. These items can be purchased and transferred to you from any FFL who has paid an annual Special Occupation Tax (SOT) on file with the BATFE. Not all states allow you to purchase or posses these items, but most do. That being said, Federal law is clear that you can own these items if you pass the background check done by BATFE, which generally takes a few months due to the volume of applications they process. State law however, can limit or prohibit your possession, as well as use of the items. When you purchase any of the items above, you pay a one time $200 transfer tax to the BATFE per serial numbered item. The only exception are the AOW's which have a $5 transfer tax.
To own any of the above items, it simply must be legal to posses in your state with the proper federal registration. You purchase the item, then the dealer or individual you purchased it from helps you to complete what is called a Form 4, finger print cards, and a certificate of compliance. Put all that in an envelope, then mail it off with a check for the appropriate NFA transfer tax. If you have a clean criminal record the item will be transferred to you in a few months, and you can take possession of it when an approved Form 4 is returned.
The purchase price for a M230 40mm grenade launcher starts around $1300 and goes up from there, depending on who makes it and the configuration or collectability. Suppressors are much cheaper for the most part, and transferable (to the public) machineguns are the most expensive of all, starting at $3500 and going up as high as 500k depending on what it is, for the supply is fixed and cannot be replenished due to the ban in 1986.
You can learn more about the National Firearms Act here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Places which make or sell various NFA items:
http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/?db=nfafirearms&category=All+Items+in+this+Category&query=category&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=headlines&website=&language=&session_key=
http://www.sturmgewehr.com/webBBS/nfa4sale.cgi
http://www.swrmfg.com/
http://www.libertycans.net/
http://www.gem-tech.com/store/pc/home.asp
http://www.advanced-armament.com/
http://www.thompsonmachine.net/
http://www.silencerco.com/
http://www.suppressedarmament.com/
http://www.surefire.com/Suppressors
We have been doing similar stuff with model rockets for years with either still images or FMV. A lot cheaper too!
Defending yourself from donkey fucking, pedophile worshiping assholes that lob bombs into your country is not murder.
Josh Marpet here @quadling on twitter. Ok, few misconceptions. The launcher we are currently using is a Spike's Tactical 37mm launcher. It is smoothbore, and we don't need to stabilize it with rifling. Once it reaches altitude, it "turns over" and starts heading down. That's when the parachute deploys (standard model rocket parachute, no need to reinvent the wheel). So if you get hit by it, it's not hard. It's essentially drifting down. As for a keychain camera, I own several of them myself. Awesome little devices. Our system, however has live video. We don't store it on the camera. It goes to the receivers, using analog 5.8gHz wireless. There are short and long range receivers. Short range we are currently using is battery powered, integral screen, removable/replaceable antenna, and MicroSD slot for storage. Long range has RCA cables to hook up to recorder/TV/Projector. We designed it to be used by Airsoft, Ground Search and Rescue, and SWAT teams. We wanted a system that could be used with equipment they probably already had, and had training on, namely 37mm Flare/smoke/CS launchers. As for the NFA comments, absolutely true. Our presentation makes it clear that we used 37 mm since it is smoothbore, with no DD (destructive Device) tax, and the rounds would also carry no DD tax. An M203 goes for ~1500 or so. Without stock or attached ar-15. A full 37mm launcher with stock? ~600USD. Big difference. Oh, and no DD ($200) tax. Bigger difference. Hope this helps. I'll try to check back and answer more questions later. Joshua