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Robot Helicopters To Single Out Pirate Ships
Hugh Pickens writes "Innovation News reports that the U.S. Navy plans to upgrade its robotic Fire Scouts with electronic 'brains' that are able to automatically recognize small pirate boats spotted through 3D laser imaging by bouncing millions of laser pulses off distant objects to create a 3D 'radar' image of any boats on the high seas — a technology known as LIDAR or LADAR — so that their new software can automatically compare the 3D images to pirate boat profiles on record. Having smarter robotic helicopters could ease the workload strain for Navy sailors, who must otherwise eyeball the data coming from the new Multi-Mode Sensor Seeker (MMSS) — a sensor mix of high-definition cameras, mid-wave infrared sensors and the 3D LADAR technology. Meanwhile, the Navy has begun testing other new technologies to tackle the problem of piracy — an especially thorny issue because of Somali pirates attacking ships off the coast of East Africa. Its more forceful countermeasures include a combination of lasers and machine guns, as well as swarms of smart rockets capable of picking out their own small boat targets."
Yer cannet detact me skull'n'bones flag!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I am the only one who thinks that sounds like a summer movie?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Soon will be applied to land pirates too. When you get up from your computer after downloading a movie, watch out for incoming automated missiles. Yesterday, they tried throwing a whole plane at some guy who downloaded a copy of Microsoft office illegally.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, Chapter 12. "They usually calls the spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the anchorage" Disney has probably licensed it by now.
Gently reply
Roboninjacopters
What is the use of this until a far greater problem with the Somali pirates is solved?
Capturing them does nothing. No African nation will take them and prosecute them, so after a few weeks the navy ships are forced to simply release them, after which they go right back to pirating. Until that problem is solved, really, what is the use of better detection tools?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/fire-x/assets/Fire-X_Brochure.pdf Cool stuff, all of this was done in less than a year according to Northrop.
...readily alter one's piratey-boat profile.
Their fishing trawlers gutted the Somali economy.
It's the logical thing to do when the pirates are moving their servers into the sky
Ever since Somalia piracy began to rise I've been thinking this could be an opportunity for India to break out and become a great power. They've been making such strides in so many areas, but in geopolitical terms are still defined by their regional spats with Pakistan and China. Directing their navy (yes, it's still small) to take down the Somalian pirates would be a way for them to change that perception. It was, after all, a similar move by the United States to take down the Barbary pirates that debuted its role as a global player.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The technologies being developed by the Navy also have another use: the current battle plan for the Iranian Navy, should they decide to harass shipping traffic (again) or try to close the Strait of Hormuz would be to use lots of small boats, much as the pirates do. But unlike the pirates, they would tend to be more destructive instead of trying to board the ships. Being able to detect those boats from afar, recognize them as a threat and then destroy/deter them from a standoff distance is the key to maintaining open traffic there, and incredibly difficult to do.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
It's great to identify pirates with robotics by I don't trust it to make a kill decision.
Adaptive Aerial Antipirate Robotically Generated Holography!
Exactly as with American inner cities, the problem is that crime works because the alternative is not to have an income. The pirates are the products of a shit-hole failed State. The people who need shooting are the on-shore warlords. Once you have government, and law, and an economy, most people do not want to earn their living by risking being shot at.
Summary: piracy is a symptom, not the cause.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
How about the US government stops listening to Netanyahu and the paranoid wing of the Israeli government, listens to its own intelligence (and the former head of Mossad), recognises Iran as a regional power that is no worse than Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, and starts using serious diplomacy on the slow process of getting Iran's head out of the sand? As Churchill remarked, jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Instead of educating them to enhance their chance on getting a paying job we invent stuff to find them, hunt them and shoot them out of the water.
Well done world.
Give all the ships the right to simply start shooting at any boat that approaches them. It's time to stop screwing around out there.
Give ships guns turrets, and when the idiots in the other boat get within 100 yards, turn everyone on board into red goo and sink the vessel.
every container ship or shipping vessel if it has a small team of 8 highly trained security and heavily armed cal easily repel these samali idiot pirates by firing on them to kill them all when they are within 100 yards or if it looks like they are heading to the boat after several loud warnings.
I would prefer they are given 40mm deck guns so they can take out the pirates boats with only a couple of shots.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's just rocks and sand.. Piracy is probably the only viable enterprise going there. It's more of an impromptu tax really and these robot counter-measures just unethical tax evasion. Pirate ships may also serve as fishing boats and refugee transport..
that would be problem number 1.
of course tackling that would mean going after the Saudis, Emiratis (including Dubai), Pakistanis and others who finance al-Shabaab. and god knows there are probably some 'red blooded americans' in there too making money off the drug deals or whatever.
Robotic Helecoptors with frikin' lasers? Sounds a tad familiar.
What damage? The cole got pretty fucked up, it wouldn't be sailing the 7 seas for awhile and 13 sailors died, but it was a cheap shot, the only reason that boat got so close is because it looked like it was there to help them handle lines and come into port. But look at this, she did not sink, the sailors successfully fought to keep the ship floating and if somehow this had happened out in the ocean whatever ship the bombers were launched from would be facing rockets, missiles, cannons, small arms, rhib boats with boarders, helicopters, hell even torpedos or cwis if they want.. they're pretty much fucked and the navy ship is still floating minus a few sailors and in need of a tow and some time in drydock.
After that any organization that was involved can expect to have SOCOM fucking their shit up regularly from then on. The only reason things worked out so well for al-Qaeda is because bush treated them like a PR opportunity.
We can add loads of other pix: Chinese nuclear attack subs; Chinese nuclear boomer subs; Chinese destroyers; Chinese Aircraft Carriers; Chinese missiles; Chinese Aircraft; Chinese killer sats. Oh yeah, add some missiles from Iran and North Korea.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So, if they just cover the boat with an odd shape is not a pirate then?
This is pretty close to what worries me, but on the opposite side. I'd worry that they rely on it too much and not flag a vessel as being a pirate (or miss it entirely) even though it is one. And then have the ships ignore it and as a result someone gets killed because whatever navy uses it, reduces the number of lookouts who would have correctly judged the situation.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Large passenger liners were used as escort ships, and equipped with guns up to 6 inch. They were very unsafe because they were not armoured, but they were being used as temporary cruisers, not as merchant ships.
During an earlier phase of piracy, the Bristol merchants were faced with the need to protect their ships. Many of them were Quakers. The solution was that they seconded a number of their (non-Quaker) sailors to the Navy to crew the protection ships, and paid for the protection.
In short, in two periods for which I have documentary evidence, the solution was to increase the Naval presence for offence, and in the case of WW2 to give merchant ships guns and depth charges to protect against marine attack. It was not to turn merchant ships into offensive/carrier hybrids.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Like shining a laser pen at their cameras or covering oneself with LEDs?
It does not make sense to play whack-a-mole with pirate vessels on the high seas. It does make sense to conduct operations against their bases on land. In fact, that's precisely what the US did in the First Barbary War. If India were to do likewise, it would herald a new geopolitical era for that country.
At any rate, I'd rather it were India, as a democracy, than China. I'm sure Indians would rather it were them instead of China, too.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
What could possibly go wrong here? ...
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
As a one time ocean cruiser - in a small boat - may I just say how terrifying this sounds?
There you are, sailing along off the coast of somewhere, minding your own business and wondering if you can stretch to one more warm beer from your fast-dwindling supplies, when a robot helicopter comes along and shoots the shit out of you.
As if rogue waves, giant fish, waterspouts and annoying customs officials weren't enough, now we get robot helicopters?
Come back Bender, all is forgiven. At least you could try to reason with him, um, it.
"Cats like plain crisps"
When Hitler declared war on the US in 1941 (dumb move on his part), the US started sending unescorted merchantmen to ship supplies across the Atlantic to the European theatre. At first, the US wouldn't listen to the experienced British navy... "Convoys? We don't need no steenkin convoys". The US lost a lot of merchant ships to U-boats in the first few months.
They finally wised up, and started grouping ships in convoys, and sending destroyers to escort them. Throw in CAP (Combat Air Patrols) from Newfoundland+Greenland+Iceland+Britain, and a lot more stuff got through, and a lot more U-boats were sunk. The advantage with a convoy is that you don't have to patrol an entire ocean. 100 miles on all sides of the convoy will do.
Fast forward to 2012. the US has UAVs flying around and shooting people in Afghanistan. They would be ideal for escorting convoys. They can stay airborne for days. Note that some of the pirates have attacked 1,000 km offshore. Their glorified motorboats don't have that much range. They're towed out there and back by "mother ships". A small motorboat leaves a mother ship and gets anywhere near a convoy, the UAVs can destroy it, and go after the mother ship as well. A half-dozen pirate crews go out, and don't come back, and the pirates will stop attacking shipping. End of problem.
A couple of US Navy cargo ships could serve as "aircraft carriers" and refueling stations for the UAVs. They don't need a long runway. Any long flat surface will do. Station one 400 km east of Bereeda (NE point of Somalia) and another one 500 km SE of Mogadishu, and you're covered.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
From the halls of Montezuma
to the shores of Tripoli
to Somalia.
The next step for our overworked Navy sailors.... Connecting the lasers with an automatic missile firing system. No sooner spotted and then destroyed! WHOOPS.... sorry about that luxury private cruise ship -) Seems the good old US navy is a far cry from when I was a blue water sailor!