 |
Katrina: Relief Links
My brother Dan was one of the lucky ones; he left New Orleans long before Katrina made landfall. But even the fortunate, like him, have no idea whether they will have homes or jobs when they return -- and may not know for weeks, or even months.
Dan is about to start the 1400-mile drive to our folks' house, to wait things out for a while. Many others don't have that luxury. Give to one of the charities linked here.
Giant Blimp on the Rise
The idea is pretty wild, even for the dreamers at Darpa: build a giant blimp that can haul 1,800 soldiers and their gear 12,000 nautical miles, in less than a week.
 But the Pentagon's research arm is serious enough about the project, code-named Walrus, to hand out more than $6 million to Lockheed Martin and Aeros Aeronautical Group to start designing the thing.
The Defense Department has renewed its interest in blimps in recent years; a pair of tethered airships kept watch over the giant American military complex near the Baghdad airport, when I was there. The "tri-phibian" (air, land, sea) Walrus is particularly intriguing because the Pentagon is trying to figure out ways to make American forces less reliant on deep-water ports, foreign bases, and billion-dollar airports to wage war. The Army's Surface Deployment and Distribution Command has its own plans for a such an airship.
Darpa hopes the designs they've just funded will lead to a small-scale Walrus, capable of carting 30 tons, by 2008, Defense Industry Daily notes. That's as much as today's C-130 transport planes. But it's only a fraction of the million pounds that the agency wants the Walrus will ultimately be able to lug around.
(Illustration by John MacNeill, used with premission.)
Laser Sat's Big Pipes
"Today’s military satellites "take about two minutes to transfer a simple photo," Defense News notes. "That same image could take about 23 seconds on the next-generation Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites, which will start to go up in the next few years."
 The third wave of U.S. orbiters, scheduled for launch in the mid-2010s, "could move the image in far less than a second." And they'd use lasers to do it.
Such blinding speed could finally bring to life the Pentagon’s visions of networked sensors and shooters — unmanned aerial vehicles, Joint Strike Fighters, warships and troops on the ground — trading instant images and video anywhere in the world.
The Air Force's Transformational Satellite System (TSAT) program got off the ground about two years ago.. Boeing and Lockheed, which each have half-billion-dollar contracts to develop initial TSAT systems, are competing for a final production contract to be awarded in a year or so. Both have reported initial success in basic laser communications and other features.
TSAT will offer jam-proof radio and laser connections to compact surface receivers. Instead of lugging around brick-sized satellite phones, troops will sport BlackBerries that deliver space intelligence on the run.
Sounds great. But the Air Force figures it'll take $12-$18 billion to put the five-satellite constellation in orbit. And, given the military space program's track record of legendarily large screw-ups, it's far from clear whether Congress will pony up for TSAT.
During the 2005 budget process, lawmakers cut $300 million from the $775 million request. In 2006, the Air Force is asking for $836 million. The House Armed Services Committee has recommended only about half that be approved, while the Senate Armed Services would like a cut of about $200 million.
THERE'S MORE: The Air Force is adding four more anti-satellite jammers to its arsenal of orbiter stoppers, Inside Defense reports.
Army Doc: "Bring Us Home"
Captain Daniel Green is an battlefield surgeon, treating soldiers and Iraqi civilians around Baghdad's Green Zone. He has seen more casualties -- and interacted with more Iraqis -- than the vast majority of GIs over there. And that has given the captain a different perspective on this war. He isn't happy with how it's being run. In an e-mail to friends and family back home, Green says that it's time for U.S. forces to get out of Iraq.
I don't rightly know what your US news is saying, but here are a few of my own observations... The US Army is putting forth its main effort to train Iraqi soldiers... It will realistically take years before their Army and police are sufficient to protect the people and resist internal corruption. The reports that the commands are making to the higher-ups are biased and sugar-coated. The corruption is underplayed and the achievements/milestones exaggerated. The results however, may convince Congress and that a successful pull-out is close.
At this point I'd appreciate [it]. I've done my part. I've personally come to the law-of-diminishing-returns. The remaining process will be slow and arduous. Increasing financial expenditures and man-hours are going to be needed to sustain any significant growth.
It's similar to building a house. From the initial ground-breaking to foundation and framing, things seem to go remarkably fast, giving the home owners an unrealistic sense of impending move-in. Then the minor details like outlets, appliances, trim work, and cabinetry begin and little progress is noted after long periods. The tenants-to-be get anxious. The same is taking place here. The American public will not be able to consciously measure our productivity even with the best of media reporting.
Besides, I think the military is the wrong force at this point. We deal effectively with the combat training, but this corruption is a new species. We need Americans more attune to the nuisances of internal governmental fraud...people more like our own lawmakers. Soldiers need to focus on combat, not mafia arbitration.
I witnessed a company commander a few months ago try to expose and bring to justice the perpetrators of an intricately weaved plot of electricity theft. The King-Pin of the scheme was none other than the chairman of the city council. That went over well...
If it moves shoot it. If it doesn't move, shoot it anyway, and leave the rest to the State Department. Bring us home.
THERE'S MORE: As Jon reminds us in the comments, Michael Yon has been doing great fronline blogging from Mosul.
Styrofoam First, Lightning Guns Later
The line between envy and admiration can be pretty thin, when you're a freelance writer. Take, for example, Defense Tech pal Sharon Weinberger's story in today's Washington Post Magazine.
 It's genius: a heartfelt, quirky, subtly snarky profile of Pete Bitar, an Anderson, Indiana styrofoam recycling entrepreneur who's now marketing non-lethal lightning guns to the Pentagon. How, she asks, did a guy with no engineering background manage to get a million bucks from the Defense Department to develop a "StunStrike" weapon?
Great question -- one I wished I had asked at the Virginia "directed energy" conference where both Weinberger and I met Bitar for this first time. Anyway, go read her piece. I'll be finished kicking myself by the time you're done.
THERE'S MORE: Speaking of kicking myself, military thinkers have been telling me for months about their idea for bringing some order to Iraq. I never got around to writing about it. The New York Times' David Brooks just did.
You set up safe havens where you can establish good security. Because you don't have enough manpower to do this everywhere at once, you select a few key cities and take control. Then you slowly expand the size of your safe havens, like an oil spot spreading across the pavement.
Once you've secured a town or city, you throw in all the economic and political resources you have to make that place grow. The locals see the benefits of working with you. Your own troops and the folks back home watching on TV can see concrete signs of progress in these newly regenerated neighborhoods. You mix your troops in with indigenous security forces, and through intimate contact with the locals you begin to even out the intelligence advantage that otherwise goes to the insurgents.
AND MORE: Armchair Generalist has a good round-up of the "oil spot" buzz.
M-4s? Not so Fast...
The Times has an interesting story on American relcutance to give Iraqi army units the machine guns and armored Humvees they want.
Simply put, Iraq remains too fragile for any planner to know what shape the country will be in six months or a year from now - whether it will reach compromises and hold together or split apart in a civil war.
And that presents a conundrum for American military planners. With those questions up in the air, they have to fear that any heavy arms distributed now could end up aimed at American forces or feeding a growing civil conflict. And the longer Iraq's army has to wait for sophisticated weapons, the longer American forces are likely to be needed in Iraq as a bulwark against chaos.
New Sensor: Naturally Rad
 Ohio State is working on a simple new sensor that could one day put other detectors out to pasture.
Unlike X-ray machines or radar instruments, the sensor doesn't have to generate a signal to detect objects – it spots them based on how brightly they reflect the natural radiation that is all around us every day.
There is always a certain amount of radiation – light, heat, and even microwaves – in the environment. Every object – the human body, a gun or knife, or an asphalt runway – reflects this ambient radiation differently.
Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Ohio State and head of the team that is developing the sensor, likened this reflection to the way glossy and satin-finish paints reflect light differently to the eye.
Once the sensor is further developed, it could be used to scan people or luggage without subjecting them to X-rays or other radiation. And if the sensor were embedded in an airplane nose, it might help pilots see a runway during bad weather.
(Big ups: Schneier. And yeah, that's a screen grab from Total Recall)
Rapid Fire 8/25/05
* Police vest can't stop bullets
* Robo-guards to Iraq
* Honest-to-God Bat-rope
* Catfish = evildoers?
* Real, virtual war games mash up
(Big ups: TT, GO, RC, Sploid)
Baghdad Battle, First Hand
Pick up the paper today, and you'll read reports of "fierce gun battles [that] erupted between about 40 insurgents and the police... in western Baghdad."
Here's what those battles looked like, from a soldier who was there. He was kind enough to copy me on an e-mail he wrote home immediately after the fighting.
I just strolled back in to the safety net of my surroundings and have been dragged through chaos the past couple of hours. My brain is still spinning and I am not sure where to even start.
 We received a request to conduct a post-blast investigation of a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) that detonated near the base camp. The initial report indicated that the target was an Iraqi Police (IP) car. We responded to the incident site and found the smoldering remains of a couple of vehicles in the middle of the road. It appeared at first glance that the only fatalities resulted from the suicide bomber in the car and perhaps the occupants of the IP car. As we walked from our vehicles to the incident site, we heard another car bomb detonating near an IP station approximately 2 kilometers away.
We soon received a request to respond. We quickly finished up with the first incident site, but not before we found additional casualties – persons in the near vicinity. While we prepared for movement to the second site, we heard on the radio that the second site was now getting hit – people were driving past the IP station, and firing RPG's [rocket propelled grenades] at IP's in their vehicles. We conducted movement to the IP station and when we arrived, the scene was full of chaos.
IP's were frantically running down the streets helping injured persons. IP vehicles were speeding up and down the streets looking for the culprits. Vehicles were burning. Gun fire erupted in the background and we just pulled our vehicles into a formation to provide a good tactical posture and prepared to unleash a heavy volley of steel. After everything settled down, we continued to do our work. We found an IED nearby that was meant to add to the attack.
I don't usually write home and talk about the details of specific incidents because I feel compelled to keep the chaos out of the homes of family and friends. But today felt different. I don't know why I had the need or desire to talk about today's events -- other than the fact that perhaps it was time to vent some fumes. All of my soldiers deal with the reality of what we face everyday in different ways. Some have made pacts to not write home and possibly worry family. Perhaps I am wrong in doing so, but I thought I would provide some insight to what you might not see on the news tonight. You will not be able to smell the burnt remains of the suicide bombers or the IP's. You probably won't see the charred remains of persons in the vehicles. And you won't be able to see the full effects of a carefully placed VBIED with a follow-up attack with RPG's and small arms fire.
While writing, I decided to comb through my pictures and add one. But I'll adhere to my promise to not send anything too graphic. Perhaps, if you catch the news, you might just see that suicide bombers once again rocked Baghdad.
Drone-Killer Designed
 I don't pretend to know the first thing about designing a drone -- much less desgining a drone-killer. But when I told the folks at Popular Mechanics that Darpa was looking for proposals for a weapon that could take out robo-planes, a team of artist- and engineer-types got busy. This is what they dreamed up.
Sub Base Saved
There was traffic on the highway, on my way to New London, Connecticut last Thursday. And as I sat on I-95, I couldn't help but think that there wouldn't be many cars there for long.
 The Pentagon had decided to close the area's big employer, the Naval Sumbarine Base New London. And what the Pentagon wants, the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) usually delivers.
But not this time.
"In what, in my view, is a landslide victory for maintaining American sea power, the BRAC Commission voted 7 to 1 (with 1 recusal) in favor of preserving Naval Submarine Base New London," notes Joe Buff, the author and undersea commentator, who's been a vocal opponent of the proposed closing.
Click here to read Joe's take on the decision.
Naval Submarine Base New London can realistically claim to be the Submarine Capital of the World. The training facilities there are state of the art, covering almost every conceivable skill a submariner needs to survive at sea and do his job. The nuclear-qualified waterfrontage at the Base, if closed, could never be regained elsewhere. Groton is the East Coast base nearest to the shortest and most covert route to the Pacific, which goes under the Arctic ice cap -- a faster route to North Korea than the subs based in San Diego, in fact. And though details are highly classified, submarines are definitely "bringing home the bacon" in the Global War on Terror. So this is a terrible time to be cutting back on their facilities or disrupting their operational flow.
The vote wrapped up a hard-fought battle that lasted all summer, becoming at times surprisingly bitter and personal. The outcome was no foregone conclusion, either. Despite strong counter-arguments from a group of retired admirals including three former CNOs, plus almost every New England politician from either party, not to mention community leaders and thousands of private citizens, the Pentagon remained insistent that both facilities be shuttered... The debate raged on until the final moments before the vote tally was taken live on C-SPAN 2, with a Department of Defense spokesman saying that New London met all the formal criteria for closure, while someone from the Government Accountability Office firmly stated quite the opposite -- and some Commissioners had pointed words of their own.
While many BRACtivists can now breath a sigh of relief that crucial national security assets, and related jobs, will be preserved, troubling questions do remain. The biggest one, in my mind, is what to make of senior DOD and Navy leaders who, despite admonishments to the contrary from many quarters of the nation, remained so fixated on a narrow view of the Global War on Terror in isolation, and so blind to the vital importance of robust undersea warfare to safeguard our country's future. Mr. Rumsfeld, in particular, must be fuming -- he had a lot of credibility invested in pushing through the closure list unchanged. The fight over an adequately-sized submarine force, especially given the rising threat of China, will undoubtedly continue, and given the ways of the Beltway will almost certainly now escalate.
Humvee 2.0
"The Pentagon is accelerating its search to replace the Humvee after two years of roadside bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Iraq," says USA Today.
 "Before the war in Iraq, a successor to the Army's dominant vehicle wasn't due until the middle of the next decade. Now the Army plans to review designs this fall, and working prototypes will be due in June."
The U.S. military needs those prototypes to be better armored than the often thin-skinned Humvees, of course. But they also want "a beefier suspension that can handle the weight of the armor... lower fuel consumption, to reduce the need for supply convoys that have been targets of insurgents... [and] improved onboard power generation to handle the expanding array of electronics that troops take into battle today compared with the simple radios of 30 years ago."
I've got a brief profile of one potential Humvee replacement in next month's Popular Mechanics. Defense Review looks at another, Georgia Tech's Ultra Armored Patrol.
(Big ups: Eric)
Rapid Fire 8/24/05
* D.I.Y. sat-killer
* Air Force personnel files hacked
* Military PDA: $18 mil
* Brits get germ-fighting skivvies
* Grown-ups take over E-ring
* Russian biolabs: no sweat
(Big ups: RC)
Subway Surveillance on Track
New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is getting set to announce their subway security plan. And from the details reported in today's Times, the MTA appears to be basing their $200 million effort on the smart surveillance systems we've profiled in places like Chicago and the port of Corpus Christi.
Lockheed Martin will lead a team of contractors in creating an "integrated electronic security system" that will include closed-circuit television cameras, motion detectors and "intelligent video" software that can automatically determine if a package has been left on a train or if a person is in a restricted area.
The MTA could have gone the London route, stringing tons of cameras throughout the subway, and only paying careful attention to the footage once something bad went down. Instead, by using software to detect suspicious behavior, New York transit officials seem to want their thousand new cameras and three thousand electronic sensors to serve as deterrents, tipping cops off to potential bad guys before they act.
The system is a long, long time in coming. Back in 2002, the MTA was given $591 million to shore up New York's mass transit security. As of last month, it had spent just $30 million of that. Finally, the London tube bombings shamed the MTA into making a move.
THERE'S MORE: Bruce Schneier thinks the subway cams are a waste, dealing with the "'movie plot threat'" of the moment... The terrorists bombed a subway in London, so we need to defend our subways."
New York City officials are [also] erring on the side of caution. If nothing happens, then it was only money. But if something does happen, they won't keep their jobs unless they can show they did everything possible. And technological solutions just make everyone feel better.
Darpa's Energy-Savers: Drones, Nets
While the New York Times and others are contemplating the beginning of the end of oil, the Pentagon's way-out research arm is trying to figure out what it would take to make the U.S. military "petroleum free," according to Inside Defense.
 Naturally, the mad scientists picked robots and wireless battlefield networks as two of their top energy savers.
“This universal connectivity will allow commanders to track individual soldiers and robots as well as logistics system status and readiness,” the summary [of a February Darpa energy workshop] states. These capabilities, coupled with advanced modeling and simulation tools, will allow commanders to rapidly explore and exploit warfighting options, which in the end translates into shorter execution time lines and reduced energy requirements.
Darpa-ites also saw drones as a potential boost to oil alternatives.
Using more unmanned systems will save energy because they will be smaller and lighter than manned systems that require armor, the summary states. Plus, robots and other unmanned systems “will allow reduction of the number of combat soldiers needed to accomplish the mission, further contributing to reduced energy requirements.”
Electricity will one day be the big replacement for oil, the Darpa conferees believe. And "since electricity can be generated from a variety of sources, it may be possible in 30 years to avoid having to rely on energy and fuel imported into a battlespace," Inside Defense notes.
The military would also need portable generators and "'ultra-high-capacity' electric storage devices to support directed-energy weapons and other 'futuristic gun systems' that require massive amounts of energy in short bursts."
But those ray guns shouldn't be wired up to the generators. The energy should be beamed through the air, instead. "This technology will be valuable because power lines are highly vulnerable to sabotage," the Darpa summary observes. Of course they are.
Rapid Fire 8/22/05
* Soldier stress RX: video games?
* Al Qaeda's new bankroll
* Tiny satellites = target practice
* Copters back from the grave
* Deep inside Gitmo (sub req'd)
(Big ups: RC)
Jet Defense Gets Off Ground
It's taken nearly three years. But the Homeland Security Department is finally ready to start testing out missile countermeasures on commercial planes.
 Back in November 2002, an Israeli 757 was attacked with two shoulder-fired MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems) over Kenya. Luckily, the missiles didn't connect. But many analysts think it's only a matter of time before an American jetliner is hit; MANPADS have killed hundreds of airline passengers since the 70's. And unless some kind of countermeasure is put in place, the planes will continue to be "almost like sitting ducks. Those aircraft are very slow... Everyone can [attack them]," an Israeli defense researcher told CNN.
Military planes are already equipped with "Directional InfraRed Counter-Measures," or DIRCMs, which use laser beams to confuse the missiles' guidance systems. But just slapping the military systems on commercial planes would cost a ton -- $11 billion, maybe, to install DIRCM on all 6,800 U.S. commercial jets, plus another $40 billion in maintenance over 10 years, according to a Rand study.
Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems have been working on cheaper, easier-to-maintain versions of the countermeasure. And Northrop says it should be ready to begin "operational testing and evaluation... aboard an MD-11 airliner later this month and a Boeing 747 later this year."
A company spokesperson says that the system "will cost airlines $0.003 to operate per available seat mile or about 70 cents per passenger on a 2,000-mi. trip. This is about the cost of a bag of peanuts," Aviation Week notes. "However, there is a weight penalty with the system. The Northrop Grumman installation weighs 500 lb., including 350 lb. for the pod, about the weight of two passengers and bags."
It's still a significant cost for already-troubled airline companies. But given the countless thousands of MANPADS floating around on the international market -- selling for as little as $5,000, according to Rand -- a bag of peanuts and two extra passengers seems like a price worth paying.
U.S. Ships Attacked
 "A rocket was fired early today at two American naval ships docked in southern Jordan, killing a Jordanian soldier and marking the first attack on American military ships in the region in five years," the Times reports.
A rocket was fired at the same time from apparently the same area at an airport in a neighboring Israeli port, hitting a stretch of road and wounding a taxi driver, news agencies reported, citing Israeli officials and witnesses. A third projectile was fired at a Jordanian hospital around the southern port of Aqaba but did no damage.
No one claimed immediate responsibility for the simultaneous attacks, which displayed audacity in their use of military-style weapons and techniques. In October 2000, two suicide bombers detonated a launch loaded with explosives next to the American destroyer Cole as it was refueling in a port in Yemen. That attack, which killed 17 people and wounded 39 others, was attributed to Al Qaeda.
The attack today on the American vessels, the dock landing ship Ashland and the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge, took place around 8:44 a.m. and missed two naval ships at dock in Aqaba, said Capt. Ryan Fitzgerald of the United States Air Force, a spokesman for the American military command in the Middle East. The tocket flew over the ships and landed on a warehouse at the pier, he said.
THERE'S MORE: Suspects have been arrested. And the Iraqi Prime Minister is accusing Jordan of allowing Saddam;s family "to finance an insurgent campaign to destabilize Iraq."
More Cash for Human Ray Gun Tests
The Pentagon is dead serious about getting its pain ray into the field soon -- serious enough to test the system out on people.
 Defense Industry Daily notes that "Conceptual MindWorks in San Antonio, TX received a $7 million cost-plus fixed-fee contract to provide for research support around emerging directed energy weapons... and their effects on humans."
Work will be conducted in cooperation with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Effectiveness Directorate... located in Brooks City-Base, TX. The scope of the proposed contract will focus on bioeffects research on directed energy and kinetic energy systems, to assist in transitioning DoD technologies from the lab to the front lines.
Using electro-magnetic waves that penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin, the Defense Department's pain ray creates a burning sensation that tends to make people run the other way, fast.
Hundreds of people have been voluntarily zapped by the device, known as the Active Denial System, with a little, if any, lasting damage. But that testing was called into question last month, when New Scientist revealed that the trials weren't as realistic as they could have been.
The experimenters banned glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the second and third tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin. They also checked the volunteers' clothes for certain seams, buttons and zips which might also cause hot spots.... People playing rioters put up their hands when hit and were given a 15-second cooling-down period before being targeted again.
A prototype Humvee-mounted ADS system could be sent to Iraq by the end of the year. A modified Stryker armored personnel carrier, equipped with a low-power version of the pain ray, a laser dazzler, and a sonic blaster, isn't all that far behind, officials familir with the program say.
Rapid Fire 8/18/05
* Good news! Only 27,600 nukes!
* "Silent plane" in the works
* Your very own laser trip wire
* Fraud slows Osprey
* Goodbye Hummers, hello donkeys
(Big ups: JQP, JO)
Bee Mine Bee Mine, Baby
Since the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military has used chickens as chemical weapons sensors, dolphins as mine detectors, and armor-wearing dogs as controllers of unruly crowds. And, generally, two-legged soldiers have been grateful for the four-legged and finned assists.
 Members of the insect community, however, have been downright pissed. They hate evil-doers just as much as the next genus. And they've been itching to get in on the action.
Luckily, Roland tells us, the little buggers may soon get their chance. Researchers funded by Darpa (of course) are training honey bees to sniff out land mines.
Bees... can be trained in a couple of days to pick up the scent of the explosive in the landmine... When released into a minefield, the bees find their way toward the mines... [They] are too small to detect either with the naked eye or high-resolution video at long ranges. So instead, the team employs a laser emitter that sweeps an area like radar or sonar. When the light hits a bee, it reflects, and sensors are able to tell by the reflection just where the bee is. After sweeping several times, the scientists are able to crunch the data and see statistically where the higher occurrences of bees are located.
In controlled situations, the method is extremely effective: Bees can detect very small traces of explosive vapors with 97% accuracy and are "wrong" -- that is, passing over a mine without noticing it -- less than 1% of the time.
THERE'S MORE: Animal lovers, be sure to read up on England's chicken-powered nuke, the Navy's plan to give sailors the sharks' electric sensors, one police department's camera-equipped pooch, and another's attempt to put a trained monkey on the SWAT team.
AND MORE: Reader DG notes that this "is not a new idea." Back in 1999, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories were training mine-sniffing bees of their own.
AND MORE: "This reminds me of a funny quote I saw about the use of dolphins, from an Aussie navy guy working with them in clearing Iraq's Um Qasr harbor," says Defense Tech pal Peter Singer.
'Flipper's fucked, mate. The dolphins have had all this amazing publicity but as soon as they put one in the water it shot through. There's a war going on and Flipper goes AWOL. If you put one to work in Sydney Harbour it would mark a million things because it can't tell the difference between a washing machine and a mine. The bottom line, mate, is it's a fish. It's also a very smart fish so how do you know it hasn't just gone off for a feed instead of working and then thought, 'Hang on, I'd better mark a few things or they won't give me any fish when I get back.'
"Special Delivery," For Sure
Now I know why the Pentagon's chiefs are spending billions to develop heavily-armed, flying robots. It's so they can get their Amazon deliveries quicker.
 Well, maybe it won't be the main mission. But Mike Francis, Darpa's program director for Joint-Unmanned Combat Air Systems, says there might be a couple of commercial applications in the killer drones' underlying algorithms. At the agency's DarpaTech 2005 conference, Francis noted that J-UCAS technology -- including multiple unmanned aircraft (unarmed, of course) and the planes' associated software and ground systems -- could be commercialized for a variety of uses. Inspecting power lines are one possibility. Handling security is another. A third is delivering or tracking UPS or FedEx packages.
Darpa announced that Boeing's X-45A prototype killer drones successfully completed a suppression of enemy air defenses demonstration last week, including detecting multiple simulated threats and performing coordinated attacks on multiple targets. The aircraft also prioritized targets, re-planned attacks as priorities changed and avoided simulated "pop-up" threats. It's no so hard to imagine the drones using the same decision-making processes to cope with slightly less-lethal choices.
-- Catherine Macrae Hockmuth
Retro-nukes
Dr. Arms Control Wonk here. Noah's running around today, so I've hijacked the blog for moment.
Retro fashions don't usually appeal to nuclear weapons designers, save for the odd Members Only jacket you spot on some poor refugee from the 1980s
So you might be surprised to find that uranium -- which fell out of favor with US nuclear weaponeers in the 1950s -- may be the hip Fall fashion in certain New Mexican locales.
Over at my blog, I've started a discussion about a story John Fleck broke in the subscription only Albuquerque Journal.
Bob Peurifoy, a retired Sandia executive, favors dumping plutonium weapons in favor of low-tech uranium designs. Actually, Peurifoy prefers the current US arsenal, but Congress says the weapons labs should relax Cold War design requirements to build new warheads that are more reliable and require less toxic industrial processes.
In that case, Peurifoy says, you can't do better than Uranium 235, which isn't nearly as expensive, toxic or fickle as plutonium.
Although a simpe uranium device (above, right) would produce a relatively small yield -- on the order of tens of kilotons -- dropping one on Kim Jong Il's Pleasure Palace would still ruin his day.
(Special Retro Bonus: Click here for a retro shot of former Sandia, and perhaps future Los Alamos, Director C. Paul Robinson).
Flocking Drones, Stress-Free Soldiers
Inside Defense's John Liang also spent last week snooping around DarpaTech 2005, the sorta-annual get-together of the Pentagon's mad science division. Here's a bit of what he found. You can check out the rest by giving this link a click.
 * Birds of a feather. Getting unmanned aircraft to fly in formation is a challenge that still escapes DARPA scientists, according to Tactical Technology Office program manager Tom Beutner. "Formation flight is an idea we know should work," he says. "We see it even in nature, yet while we routinely use formation flight for tactical advantage, it has never been utilized for the full aerodynamic benefit it offers." Flying in formation allows the aircraft behind the leader to conserve fuel by flying in its slipstream, just like geese do when they fly south for the winter. "Only birds now do this routinely, and they can't explain it to us," he said.
* Stressed out. DARPA's Defense Sciences Office has been trying for years, now, to figure out how GIs can fight on little or no sleep. Now, DSO officials are looking for ideas on how soldiers can wage war, just about stress-free. The scientists are seeking ways to completely eliminate post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as techniques to map and identify the neural transmitters that cause the brain to feel stress.
* Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow (or sleet, or blow sand). DSO officials also want to enhance the human body's ability to adapt to extreme environments. Normally it takes a human several weeks to get used to a new environment; DARPA seeks technologies to speed that process up, as well as to identify the essential building blocks of how such adaptations happen.
* Itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot . . . contact lens? DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office is looking for ideas that would allow a nano-chip to be placed on a contact lens, according to MTO's Dennis Palla. The technology also would allow soldiers to receive and read data from various sources, as well as act as a miniature camera that could transmit what he or she sees back to either the headquarters unit or to other soldiers in the field via a network, Palla says.
-- John Liang
Phone Book: G.I.'s Best Friend?
Darpa program manager Michael Pagels says he could easily drown a soldier... in data, with more than 400 terabytes each day. A terabyte, from the Greek word for monster, is a thousand billion bytes or a thousand gigabytes. And 400 terabytes is the equivalent of every person in the urban Los Angeles area taking a digital photo every second for a year, noted Pagels, a program manager with the far-side agency's Information Exploitation Office.
 Pagels wants a new kind of map to avoid this this "death by data." One that does what our brains do automatically: create models of the world that are constantly updating to reflect our experiences.
We maintain a 4D model of the world in our heads and during every waking moment we update it with information from our senses, identifying objects, and reasoning about the relationships among those objects. It works so well in our brains, but how do we make it work in our exploitation systems?
IXO colleague Robert Tenney argued that the key to this new map might be found in the phone book. By applying longitude and latitude to the telephone numbers in a given operational area, Tenney said the military can create models that indicate whether there's a market on the street around the corner or a warehouse. Useful info for a soldier on the move, assuming they have Yellow Book in Tikrit. The models would merge data from imagery and conventional maps as well.
Our Soldier in Baghdad knows where she is; GPS solves that problem, at least in terms of lat/long. Maps, perhaps updated with images, give her an address and that of the street around the corner. The telephone book tells her what's on that street around the corner: a gas station, a mosque, a firehouse, a factory, whatever.
Ideally, Tenney said, all of that information would be matched up, somehow, with the knowledge of a neighborhood's recent past.
Did the beatup car come from a residence or a chop shop? Did a pedestrian come from a home or from a car that sped away? Did the fire engine come from a firehouse or a warehouse?
Let's call these things "track history." In the urban world, it's good to know where a truck came from. It's good to know with whom it interacted along the way. Because this historical information can help distinguish the guy who's just picking up the trash, from the guy who's about to die—along with you, and many others...
More people will be in the market during morning and afternoon on weekdays, than at night, at noontime, or on holy days. They may be expressed as travel patterns: garbage trucks have more-or-less normal routes. They may be expressed as social or business activities: neighborhood soccer games happen in the evening. All these normal behaviors, when filtered out, leave indications of abnormal behavior.
Okay… sounds good. But remind me again: Who puts out the Yellow Pages for Baghdad?
-- Catherine Macrae Hockmuth
THERE'S MORE: Richard Parent nicely illustrates the potential for these Darpa proposals. Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase is involved.
Unmanned Future Plotted
The Defense Department's "Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2005-2030" is a pretty cold-eyed document, detailing in no uncertain terms what the pilotless planes of the world can and cannot do. But there is a part of the Roadmap where the Pentagon's planners let their imagination run wild, where they consider the flying robotic equivalent to concept cars. Here are a few models…
 DP-5X
length: 11 ft. weight: 475 lbs. endurance: 5.5 hrs. 0 delivered/TBD planned
The DP-5X is planned to be a… VTOL [vertical take off and landing] UA [unmanned aircraft]. The program has successfully completed development and test milestones and is planning to enter initial flight demonstrations. The vehicle is modular and will facilitate reconfigurations to include or remove subsystem components. The modular design allows the aircraft to be separated into distinct modules that are man-transportable. The DP-5X has an ample payload capacity and is designed to fit into a common HMMWV system. The unique construction allows it to be rapidly launched by two operators. The vehicle can serve as a tactical Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) and Communication Relay platform to the Army small unit commanders at the Battalion and below level.
Long Gun
length: 12 ft. weight: 720 lbs. endurance: 30+ hrs. 0 delivered/TBD planned
The DARPA Long Gun program will evaluate and develop a re-useable, long endurance, low cost, joint, unmanned/armed missile system combined with a tri-mode long wave infrared/near infrared/visible (LWIR/NIR/VIS) sensor with laser spot targeting. Ducted fan propulsion will provide efficient thrust for long endurance. The missile will be launched from a canister carried on a sea or ground vehicle, will fly to a specified target area, and use a tri-mode sensor operating at visible, long, and near-infrared wavelengths to search for targets. If a qualified target is found, the missile will attack the target with a self-contained munition. If no targets are found, the missile could be commanded to return to base. The missile will include a data link back to a human controller/ operator to confirm target characteristics, approve engagement, and perform battle damage assessment.
A-160 Hummingbird
length: 35 ft. weight: 4300 lbs. endurance: 18 hrs. 4 delivered/10 planned
The A160 Hummingbird is designed to demonstrate the capability for marked improvements in performance (range, endurance, and controllability), as compared to conventional helicopters, through the use of a rigid rotor with variable RPM, lightweight rotor and fuselage structures, a high efficiency internal combustion engine, large fuel fraction, and an advanced semi-autonomous flight control/flight management system. The patented Optimum Speed Rotor (OSR) system allows the rotor to operate over a wide band of RPM and enables the A160 rotor blades to operate at the best lift/drag ratio over the full spectrum of flight conditions. First flight occurred in January 2002. In flight testing, using a 4-cylinder racing car engine, the A160 has achieved 135 knots speed, 7.3 hour endurance on an 18% fuel load, 7,000 ft altitude, and wide variation in rotor RPM. Autonomous flight achieved for take-off, waypoint flight, landing, and lost-link return to base. Current plans are to test with a 6-cylinder engine, then migrate to a turboshaft engine, and ultimately to a diesel engine, to achieve high endurance (24+ hours) and high altitude (30,000 feet). The DARPA contract ends in 2007.
 X-50 Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing (CRW)
length: 17.7 ft. weight: 1485 lbs. endurance: 30 mins. 2 delivered/2 planned
The CRW concept combines the VTOL capability of a helicopter with the high-subsonic cruise speed (as high as 400 knots) of a fixed-wing aircraft. CRW intends to achieve this by stopping and locking the rotor and using it as a wing to achieve high speed forward flight; the canard and tail provide additional lifting and control surfaces. For both rotary and fixed-wing flight modes, the CRW is powered by a conventional turbofan engine. The X- 50 is a technology demonstrator designed to assess and validate the CRW concept. Hover tests were conducted in December 2003 and March 2004, but a hard landing resulted in significant damage to the first air vehicle. The second X-50 is now being readied to continue the flight testing, planned for summer 2005.
Cormorant
Length: 19 ft. weight: 9000 lbs. endurance: 3 hrs
The Cormorant project is currently conducting a series of risk reduction demonstrations for a multi-purpose UA that is “immersible” and capable of launch, recovery, and re-launch from a submerged SSGN [guided missile] submarine or a surface ship. Such an UA could provide all- weather ISR&T, BDA [battle damage assessment], armed reconnaissance, or SOF and specialized mission support. In particular, the combination of a stealthy SSGN submarine and a survivable air vehicle could introduce a disruptive capability to support future joint operations. If the current demonstrations are successful, follow-on efforts could involve building an immersible and flyable demonstrator UA.
It's interesting to see, too, what's not on the Roadmap's list. For example, Future Combat Systems, the Army's gazillion dollar modernization program, is supposed to have at least four new kinds of flying drones by 2008, from backpack to mini-helicopter sized. But, according to the Roadmap, two of those four robo-planes will be ones that G.I.s are already flying. Instead of the UFO-buttplug hybrid that the Pentagon had originally been pushing to put in soldiers' packs, the model airplane-esque Raven will get the nod, at least initially. Although there are hopes for the DP-5X to become the Army's two-man portable drone of the future, the rail-launched Shadow 200, which first flew in 1991, will be drone of choice, for now.
THERE'S MORE: Aviation Week looks at the Roadmap and notes that UA missions "will be quickly expanding into the more exotic areas of electronic jamming, communications interception, pulling imagery from obscure portions of the electromagnetic spectrum and the measurement of faint signals that could betray enemy activity."
The Roadmap has several chronological buckets for the appearance of specific capabilities. In 2005-10, some UAVs are to be inaudible from 1,000 ft. or less, detect targets under trees, distinguish facial features from 4 naut. mi., and automatically recognize target vehicles. By 2010-15, UAVs are to be capable of automated aerial refueling and employing a 100-band hyperspectral imagery sensor. Capabilities added in 2015-20 are to be the ability to map sea mines in real time and increased endurance (of 40%) without an increase in fuel load. The period 2025-30 is to produce 1,000-band hyperspectral imagery and human-equivalent processor speed and memory in a computer small enough for airborne use...
One big obstacle to expansion, particularly among the most sophisticated of these aircraft, appears to be the recruitment and training of qualified pilots and sensor operators to fly and fight them. Possibly the most sought-after and overworked units are the U.S. Air Force's three Predator squadrons stationed at Nellis AFB and Creech AFB in Nevada; only the aircraft and small launch and recovery teams operate in Afghanistan and Iraq. Crews flying the overseas missions are actually operating from "cockpits" at Nellis.
For example, the Predator training squadron flying from Creech will produce only 15 pilots and 15 sensor operators per class during the next year, and perhaps double that in the following year, say USAF officials. There are plans to establish a second flight training unit, possibly operated by the Air National Guard. But demands of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq will make it a slow process.
Mag: Tehran's Iraq Moves "Rival Those of U.S."
The Times had a titilating piece ten days back about Iran supplying some of the Iraqi insurgency's roadside bombs. Today, Time magazine carries the story about seven football fields further, documenting a wide-scale effort by Tehran to make its presence felt through Iraq.
A TIME investigation, based on documents smuggled out of Iran and dozens of interviews with U.S., British and Iraqi intelligence officials, as well as an Iranian agent, armed dissidents and Iraqi militia and political allies, reveals an Iranian plan for gaining influence in Iraq that began before the U.S. invaded. In their scope and ambition, Iran's activities rival those of the U.S. and its allies, especially in the south.
Read it all.
THERE'S MORE: "The American commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, speaking to reporters from Baghdad June 21, played down the notion of outside [read: Iranian] expertise coming into the country," Defense News observes.
“They are certainly getting some outside advice, but there is some technical expertise that was resident in the Iraqi Army, probably from their explosive ordnance personnel.” He said it is not so much technical sophistication that’s a problem; the lethality of the IEDs comes from a combination of bombs. “The tactical expertise to do that, that capability exists here in the country,” he said.
Brain Caps and Pentagon Pandas
I wasn't able to make it out to DarpaTech 2005, last week's get-together of the Pentagon's way-out researachers. Luckily, Defense Tech spy Catherine Macrae Hockmuth snuck in for all of us. She a veteran defense industry reporter who's returning to the field after a little hiatus. Here's what she found...
 It’s amazing how much defense conferences are like episodes of Law & Order. Even when you stop watching for a time it’s easy to jump back in because the issues never change. Law & Order is forever about perverts on the loose, people who kill family for insurance, and weird, doped-up rich kids who kill for fun. Speeches at defense conferences are always about shortening DOD’s odious procurement cycle, managing hordes of data, lifting the fog of war, and managing hordes of data.
DarpaTech, a technology conference held every 18 months in Anaheim by the Defense Department’s mad scientists is no exception. Fortunately, Darpa program managers have always had a certain I-have-no-idea-if-this-will-work,-but charm, and that allows for some wild animation and ideas. And, oh yes, pleas to the defense industrial complex for help, which is the basic function of DarpaTech. Some 2,500 attendees listened attentively this week as PMs laid out their big ideas, closing with some variation on “if you can help make this happen come see me.”
At that, a few ideas:
Brain Caps. Navy Cmdr. Dylan Schmorrow wants to put “brain caps” on soldiers to improve their ability to take in new information under stress. Schmorrow, a Darpa program manager in the Information Processing Technology Office, is a naval aerospace experimental psychologist. The concept is based on the fact that humans can only handle so much information at any given time. As a result, “complex human-machine interactive environments” common in the military often fail under stress, according to a description of the program, Improving Warfighter Information Intake [formerly known as "Augmented Cognition" --ed.], on IPTO’s Web site.
Schmorrow said if you were to ask a person whether he wanted lunch while he was giving a presentation and simultaneously answering questions from a crowd of people, you wouldn’t get much of an answer. That’s because his brain’s verbal center is overloaded. But if you gestured to him by simulating eating a sandwich, he could probably nod or motion yes or no.
Schmorrow said brain caps would not read minds; they would just measure types of activity much the way mood rings report when someone is stressed out. More broadly, as displayed in IPTO’s giant brain exhibit, artificial intelligence researchers are trying to teach computers how to learn and reason like us. It’s the difference between programming a robot to play soccer, and enabling a robot to learn the game.
PANDA. Darpa’s IXO office wants software that can analyze strange maritime behavior, alerting the Navy when something’s not right such as a shipful of terrorists transporting WMDs. Apparently, pirates are something of a menace on the high seas, hijacking commercial vessels, stealing and selling illicit materials and wreaking havoc on the shipping industry. PANDA, or predictive analysis for naval deployment activities, would track local and global patterns of behavior by commercial vessels including their shipping routes and routine detours for fuel or paperwork. That way when a ship that always travels between Malaysia and Japan winds up in the Indian Ocean we know something is up.
Information Explotation Office (IXO) Program Manager Kendra Moore said currently this sort of tracking is done manually based on a list of about 100 vessels that are known to be troublemakers. She plans to issue a broad area announcement on the program in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the Sixth Fleet will soon be the first to deploy new software that will automate the tracking process until PANDA comes along. Moore said the automation software, Fast-C2AP, would make tracking down certain ships more like looking for a stock price online.
Multi-Modal Missiles. The military has missiles that can shoot down planes, and destroy tanks and bunkers, what it doesn’t have is a single missile that can do all of those things. Oh, and, Tactical Technology Office Director Art Morrish asks, can it be handheld? Morrish asked attendees to play other “thought games,” such as:
What if we didn’t have to trade efficiency for speed? What if we could make aircraft that could fly in and out of an area at Mach 1.5 or better and still have tens of hours to days of loiter time?
Space Dust. Gary Graham, from the Virtual Space Office, continued the game with a call for WMD-hunting space dust and other novelties.
The time is ripe for revolution. What if we could launch many small microsatellites and network them with WiFi, the way we link laptops to the web at Starbucks? What if we could develop a launch vehicle so light and reusable that we could move from limited launches to space sorties? What if we could develop antennas that are small on launch, enormous on orbit? Or apertures that build themselves in space? What if we could exploit near space to take advantage of the closer distances and eliminate orbital launch requirements altogether? What if, in the quest to monitor weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), we could sprinkle large geographic areas with dust that changes in the presence of WMD agents and monitor all this from space?
Sounds swell, Gary. As long as I'm not allergic. For more on Catherine's take on DarpaTech, click on back tomorrow...
Special Forces' Drones
 The Pentagon came out the other day with its "Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2005-2030." It's the Defense Department's once-every-few-years wrap-up of everything it's doing in drone-land. And there are, of course, a number of interesting tidbits. I'll share 'em with you here, as I make my way through all 213 pages.
But here's something that caught my eye right away: a breakdown of the robo-planes being used by (or in the works for) Special Forces. Two of 'em I had heard of before -- the Snow Goose and Onyx delivery drones. The rest were new to me.
BATCAM
length: 24". weight: .84 lbs. endurance: 18 mins. 46 planned
First flown in 2003, the Battlefield Air Targeting Camera Micro Air Vehicle (BATCAM) will be a recoverable/attritable asset for the Air Force Special Operations Command and Air Force Battlefield Airmen. The BATCAM w provide the ability to covertly navigate, reconnoiter, and target objectives, ultimately enhancing situational awareness, reducing fratricide, increasing survivability, and mission success rates.
Neptune
length: 7 ft. weight: 20 lbs. endurance: 4 hrs. 5 delivered/27 planned
Neptune is a new tactical UA [unmanned air] design optimized for at-sea launch and recovery. Carried in a 72x30x20 inch case that transforms into a pneumatic launcher, it can be launched from small vessels and recovered in open water. It can carry IR or color video sensors, or can be used to drop small payloads. Its digital data link is designed to minimize multipath effects over water. First flight occurred in January 2002, and an initial production contract was awarded to DRS Unmanned Technologies in March 2002.
XPV-2 Mako
length: 9 ft. wieght: 130 lbs. endurance: 8.5 hrs. 30 delivered
Mako is a lightweight long endurance versatile unmanned aircraft capable of a variety of missions, yet of sufficiently low cost to be discarded after actual battle, if necessary. It is a single engine, high wing, Radio Controlled or computer assisted autopilot UA capable of daylight or infrared reconnaissance and other related missions. Although it is a relatively new aircraft, the recent modifications that included the addition of navigation/strobe lights, a Mode C transponder, dual GCS operational capability, and a new high resolution digital camera, made it a success during support to OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom].
Monday: experimental drones. Stay tuned.
I Doubt This is True...
...But it's still nice to hear, anyway.
"You're usually right, more so than most, and I *do* read your site. Everyone at the Pentagon does, from time to time."
- anonymous Defense Department official
Rapid Fire 8/12/05
* "Able Danger" not so able?
* 50 ICBMs going conventional?
* Darpa wants tiniest drone
* Senator: Bioshield 2.0, please
*Sci-fi scribes too close to truth
* D.I.Y. flamethrower
(Big ups: Boing Boing, Ace)
L.A. Cops' Super Sonic Blaster
Since the early part of last year, U.S. soldiers and marines have been experimenting with a series of sonic blasters in Iraq. The Long Range Acoustic Devices, or " | |
