Networked Landmines Work Together 768
crazedpilot writes "New landmines will soon communicate via a radio network, and move from place to place in order to be most effective." Termed the "self-healing minefield", the individual mines are capable of detecting an enemy breach and then moving to seal the gap.
Hoppers! (Score:5, Interesting)
I swear I use the same things in Half-Life 2.
from the site though, the best part has to be:
Technical Support for your hopping mines! [darpa.mil]
I really want to know what happens when they run out of power though?
Are they inert or do they revert to a dangerous stepper?
The inert option would seem the best since they can be tended to for the duration of the war then afterwards no children will lose their legs or anything.
Detection (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't a landmine that transmits a signal be relatively easy to detect? Just look for the signal and disable the mine. On the plus side, maybe these would make it easier to clean them up when the particular war that used them was over. There are many countries that are potted with landmines from wars that ended years ago. Taking a stroll in the country in these places is extremely dangerous.
Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:1, Interesting)
Hack your way through? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sunset Clause (Score:5, Interesting)
IF you're going to design a high-tech landmine, for heavens sakes, design in a renewable sunset clause so that if the landmine doesn't hear from you in 30 days it disables itself. If you need to reenable it, fine, but disabled should be the default.
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:5, Interesting)
But first can I say: holy crap! I was one of the main software engineers on this project (heck I still have the source code on my laptop) but that was like 5 years ago. NOW we get slashdotted?
In any case, the story we got was: normally, anti-tank mines are surrounded by anti-personnel mines. Anti-tank mines have magnetic triggers and are (relatively) safe for people: they are vulnerable to simply being picked up and moved out of the way. So the anti-tank mines are surrounded by APLMs to prevent the enemy from trivially disabling the field.
APLMs are the nasty ones that kill kids decades later. So in an effort to reduce the number of APLMs deployed DARPA tried this crazy idea of making self-healing anti-tank mines. in other words, since the anti-tank mines can protect themselves by moving, the anti-personnel mines are no longer necessary. And the world gets a little better.
This was a heck of a project to work on. I got to FIRE ROCKETS! Under software control! Super cool.
Re:Detection (Score:3, Interesting)
First, run a robot thru the minefield to blow one or more up.
then blow up anything that moves to fill in the hole you just made
repeat as needed.
When it's hacked... (Score:5, Interesting)
Developed from the Sandia hopper (Score:5, Interesting)
This started with the Sandia spherical hopper [sandia.gov]. "A pre-programmed microprocessor inside the hopper reads an internal compass, and a gimbal mechanism rotates the offset-weighted internal workings so that the hopper rolls around until it is pointed in the desired direction. The combustion chamber fires, the piston punches the ground, and the hopper leaps." That was back in 1997. Now, it looks like it is approaching production.
America's army of killer robots is coming. Soon.
Re:who supports land mines ? (Score:5, Interesting)
1)Stop selling mines to other countries(!!!)
2)Stop using mines unilaterally, except at the DMZ in Korea
3)Negotiate a waiver for the DMZ field
The first and second options are no-brainers, the fact that the US has not done either of these and is in fact developing these new mines is utterly disgusting. We stand with the scum of the earth when we stand up for the use of mines.
The last option would involve some kind of quid pro quo where the US kicks in some significant capital for mine removal, but we have no money spending billions per week in Iraq and mine removal will save a LOT of people from dying or spending their lives horrifically disfigured. Of course this will never happen since the warmongers at DOD resist all restrictions on what toys they get to play with, from mines to nuclear bunker-busters to White Phosporous to Napalm... is it any wonder the world thinks so poorly of us?
Useful for post-war clean up too! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:0, Interesting)
Seems like the perfect weapon for our Global War on Terrorism[tm]!
Also, even if they cannot be remotely disabled, the enemy can just catapult some dead cows (a la Monty Python) into the field and blow up a bunch of mines, and then listen for the RF chatter to locate the rest of the mines. Excellent idea. I wonder why nobody thought of that before.
Re:What's next? Electric chair stories? (Score:4, Interesting)
>
> If you're going to report on anything, ScuttleMonkey, try posting about technology that saves lives.
I wasn't aware that news only involved the prettier uses of technology. Here I sat in my naïveté, thinking we ought to hear about both good and bad things.
Sarcasm aside,
To address the first quoted claim, I disagree that this is an immoral use of technology. In a war, the two essential objectives are to preserve your resources (such as soldiers lives) and to neutralize the enemy, with preference going towards the latter. As such, any technology that aids in either of these objectives is moral, or at least amoral (I tend to think of war -- it's execution, not necessarily its objectives or motivations -- amorally, but that you can assign value judgments based on various objectives allows us to speak in moral terms if we like).
Is this use of technology disgusting? I think so. So are assault rifles and hand grenades, in my opinion. But this does not make them immoral in the context in which they are meant to be used.
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRF7dTafPu0&search
Because it only happens to worthless swarthy foriegn kids, and not your precious, precious babies.
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:3, Interesting)
Question two, how human-safe are anti-tank mines really in the long run? If an anti-tank mine is forgotten and left in place for years or even decades, what are the chances that someday it will either (a) decompose enough to become unstable and therefore dangerous, or (b) end up in an area where large metal objects (tractors, cars, construction equipment, etc.) are likely to appear?
Re:Sick country (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer was: the minefield is not designed to kill people, its purpose is to be an obstacle. The threat of deadly force, unfortunately, is required for it to be an effective obstacle. If you want to spend the next 6 hours fucking around with the minefield as if it's a toy while there's a war going on around you, you're not going to live long. A ranger who cleared mines for a living stopped by our demo site during one of our live-rocket demos and said, "If I saw this in the field I'd tell the unit to just mark it on the map and go around." Which is its purpose.
I'm not surprised, but still dismayed, at the "dude you're a monster!" venom that was unleashed at my original post. That's too bad. Was I uncomfortable with the project? Yes, a bit, and that was part of the reason I left the company. But I find it amusing that everyone on here claims to have such a clear-cut moral compass. "Don't work on anything that could possibly have a bad use" covers an awful lot of ground. Our SHM prototype used Linux; have you ever contributed to the kernel, and if so does that make you an accessory too? Why do you write open source software when some of it can, conceivably, be used for doing evil?
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is completely unfair if the civilians aren't going to be armed with the same range of devices that are available to police. So the public needs to start arming itself with these weapons immediately. This means all of you- open another tab right now and start buying some non-lethal weaponry for the next time you run into the police in a crowded public setting. Tasers are sold to nervous women all over the Internet, and you can buy "X-Ring" rubber bullets in a variety of calibers up to
The non-lethal weapon I want is the capture net that is fired from a 37 mm launcher, with weights at the corners that spiral around the guy. I'd use that one at meetings for when someone comes up with a really bad idea- the kind of bad idea that needs to be stopped now before too many PHB-types hear it. I'd stand up, say "stop right there" and fire the net around the person, immobilizing him before his bad idea got any traction. I really think that would help me make my point.
If everyone in the meeting were afraid that anyone there might be armed with one of these things, it could really cut down on bad ideas.
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno... do IEDs count?
Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sunset Clause (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty soon a subtle nudge will set them off.
I've been to Cambodia, I've seen children SHARING A PAIR OF SHOES.
Banned by the Geneva convention! GREAT Landmines are one of the most horrific things ever.
I don't claim I'm a perfectly moral person, but I would never EVER work on a project involving landmines or any other technology with DIRECT military application.
Re:Hoppers! (Score:2, Interesting)
They exist. I've worked on the development of the warhead for a tactical anti-personnel landmine for the DRDO, India's DARPA. While I didn't work on the electronics or the fuse, I have sufficient knowledge of the whole system.
Landmines have a stable explosive in the warhead, usually TNT/RDX. Hopping mines like the Bouncing Betty have an extra charge of cordite. The way it functions is once the mine is triggered (by whichever means it is designed for), the trigger delivers an electric charge to the detonator, which is a slightly unstable explosive (easier to detonate than RDX/TNT). This detonates the detonator, which creates a detonation wave which then passes to the main explosive, causing it to detonate.
In case of the hopping mines, the trigger sets of the cordite, which makes the warhead hop up about a metre or so. The warhead is connected to the base with a small cord which, when taut, triggers the main warhead at the appropriate height.
The simplest way to restrict the operational timeframe of a landmine is to determine how long the battery inside the trigger retains its charge. Once the battery is devoid of charge, the landmine is safe for handling by a small child. Such landmines are already in use in most developed countries.
Apart from being able to restrict civilian deaths occuring from landmines being left behind after the war (Africa, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka etc.), it also enables field commanders to use landmines tactically. Additionally, they can be fired behind a retreating enemy using a small rocket-delivery mechanism to slow the enemy down. In such cases, it is critical that the landmines de-activate before your own troops reach the area.
Re:Useful for post-war clean up too! (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact historically true.
The Russians did this to the German destroyer fleet on 10/11th of Novermber 1916. The Germans were given a fake map with the corridors through the minefield defending the Finnish bay. They sent in a single destroyer to investigate which safely came back. After that they sent in a whole detachment which went in and the russians mined the exit behind them. By that time the end of the channel was also mined.
As a result the Germans lost 7 capital ships and had twice more heavily damaged which is one of their 3 biggest naval losses comparable only to Jutland and Falklands. An impressive testament to what "moving" mine field can do.
King Gustav Adolf (Score:2, Interesting)
>Especially from our competitors in the arms business, including sweet neutral Sweden and Switzerland
As for Sweden: when we, Hungary decided to buy the swedish made "JAS-39 Gripen", which is a tiny, economy jetfighter, America got really angry. "Not buying our surplus F-16 or F-18? Let's see if you can get US entry visa requirement abolished for hungarian citizens in the next 25 years to come" and various threats they made. (Yankee can come here without visa).
Of course we did not buy either US plane because we have no intention to bomb the palestinians or invade Iran. We needed a plane for fighter interception and reconnaisance, that can be run on the cheap in the long term. We need no extensive offensive capability. That is the big problem with US arms: everybody knows you buy them because you want to wage a war. This is why countries buy french, swiss or swedish arms.
Re:When it's hacked... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the fact that it's running a little embedded computer and doing radio is enough to come up with various scenarios:
- If you know what to listen for, you can actually hear the mines telling you where they are. Yes, the datastream is wrapped in mad crypto, but the underlying signal can probably still be triangulated the old fashion way.
- If you know what frequency ranges to disrupt, you can prevent mines from talking to each other, eliminating their ability to hop around to cover holes in the grid (I suppose they could start hopping around like headless chicken, though.)
- If you had some kind of hardware lying around that's able to generate an EMP, you could possibly fry a chip or two inside the mine, stopping them from hopping at least. That one is a bit less likely, as mad
Re:Useful for post-war clean up too! (Score:4, Interesting)
You're confusing military and civilian demining.
Military demining is about getting a safe path through the minefield. That is relatively simple to do, but takes a bit of time (enough for whoever laid the minefield to respond).
Civilian demining is about making sure that there's not a single one of the damned things left. That's the hard part, since you need to find every single one of the little buggers and disarm it (or, if that is not possible, detonate it on site, but this is not preferred since it might toss other mines around, and maybe into areas that were already demined).
Re:who supports land mines ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure the military bases in Mississippi and Louisiana were properly secured and evacuated, and after the storm they were quickly cleaned up and back in an operational state. Part of that planning probably included not putting any bases below sea level.
Cleaning up the rest of the world after storms isn't really in their mandate. I'm sure the military was also involved in all the testing that showed that the city would be turned into a toilet bowl after a major hurricane - Congress just decided not to fund any solutions to the problem.
And the military could have helped out quite a bit more if they were permitted to treat the war-zone that followed just like any other war zone - with looters shot by snipers on sight. Ditto for those who fail to disperse on command when rescue personnel are being harassed. This is the stuff that the military is actually good at. It just doesn't fit in with the modern litigous society.
The solution to hurricanes is to not provide government funds of any kind for the rebuilding of costal or below-sea-level housing. The only relief that should be provided is the purchase of property for the conversion into parks, and the granting of relocation funding. Ditto for homes destroyed in recurring floods of any kind. If the rich want to build mansions on the shoreline, that is fine, but they shouldn't go looking for handouts when a storm comes along. The poor don't belong there at all - those who are already there should be allowed to stay, but when their homes are knocked down they should be granted relief funds to move out.
Re:Useful for post-war clean up too! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hoppers! (Score:2, Interesting)
Rapists, murders, and other thugs probably don't much like the police, either. In fact, if everyone was nice and liked everyone else, there would be no need for police or soldiers!
Re:Useful for post-war clean up too! (Score:4, Interesting)
Point is, without going into an area and doing a thorough survey of the ground and dealing with them on a case by case basis you can't really tell what you're dealing with. Thus adhoc methods like throwing bowling balls aren't very effective in the general case. You're certainly not going to be able to deal with anything but the most primitive mines and oddly enough sophisticated methods of clearing an area won't deal with many of the less-than-sophisticated mines.