Can hardly wait to see this in the hands of the civil authorities

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,84400,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls

American Forces Press Service | Donna Miles | January 03, 2006



WASHINGTON - Troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.

The new "Radar Scope" will give warfighters searching a building the ability to tell within seconds if someone is in the next room, Edward Baranoski from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Special Projects Office, told the American Forces Press Service.

By simply holding the portable, handheld device up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing, he said.

The Radar Scope, developed by DARPA, is expected to be fielded to troops in Iraq as soon as this spring, Baranoski said. The device is likely to be fielded to the squad level, for use by troops going door to door in search of terrorists.

The Radar Scope will give warfighters the capability to sense through a foot of concrete and 50 feet beyond that into a room, Baranoski explained.

It will bring to the fight what larger, commercially available motion detectors couldn't, he said. Weighing just a pound and a half, the Radar Scope will be about the size of a telephone handset and cost just about $1,000, making it light enough for a soldier to carry and inexpensive enough to be fielded widely.

The Radar Scope will be waterproof and rugged, and will run on AA batteries, he said.

"It may not change how four-man stacks go into a room (during clearing operations)," Baranoski said. "But as they go into a building, it can help them prioritize what rooms they go into. It will give them an extra degree of knowledge so they know if someone is inside."

Even as the organization hurries to get the devices to combat forces, DARPA already is laying groundwork for bigger plans that build on this technology.

Proposals are expected this week for the new "Visi Building" technology that's more than a motion detector. It will actually "see" through multiple walls, penetrating entire buildings to show floor plans, locations of occupants and placement of materials such as weapons caches, Baranoski said.

"It will give (troops) a lot of opportunity to stake out buildings and really see inside," he said. "It will go a long way in extending their surveillance capabilities."

The device is expected to take several years to develop. Ultimately, servicemembers will be able to use it simply by driving or flying by the structure under surveillance, Baranoski said.

 

Seeing through walls via IR isn't exactly new. They already are in the hands of civil authorities and in use in the private sector as well.

Here is a filter that can be added to certain types of video cameras to see through walls...
http://www.howstuffworks.com/gadget93.htm

Here is an article on the matter from 2000
http://www.sfdonline.org/Link Pages/Link Folders/DearSingaporean/2000/051000.html

 

Meh, will they be able to see that claymore on a tripwire or the gernade without a pin sitting in a glass jar? From what I understand this thing simply detects motion. So if the windows are open and the wind is blowing, this thing will be worthless since anything in the room could be blowing around like curtains, a table cloth, or some old MRE wrapers on a chair. The higher end ones that let one "see" the layout. How exactly do they do that with an acceptable amount of radiation being emitted? I bet the battery life is impressive a 1.5 lb unit with 50 lbs of AA batteries to keep it running.

/I'm sceptical of "super gismos"

 

I was being a bit facetious on this as the subject has come up in the Supreme Court and they ruled that it is a violation of reasonable search to look through walls, etc. That doesn't mean that a future court will not rule differently on other cases.

The equipment right now is large but this is a new breakthrough and, as stated in the story, that development will continue to make more sensitive, powerful, and lighter units as time goes on.

 

Doesn't sound like infra red, sounds more like millimeter wave radar.

As this sensing technology spreads, I see an increasing market for fine metal mesh being incorporated into building structures, clothing, etc.

And the "real" bad guys will start lining their apartments with aluminum foil, like Mel Gibson's character did in that movie - what was the title, Conspiracy Theory or something?

 

jimpeel, right, but the technology is already there for use in the private sector. Of course the technology is getting smaller. Given the size of the gizmo you showed, obviously they have been working on downsizing for quite a while.

The fact that you or I could have a setup with a simple video camera indicates how accessible the technology is.

For several years now, firefighters have used handheld IR viewers to search buildings that were on fire, being able to ascertain whether a fire was behind a door or not without the need for removing gloves and feeling the door. If a heat source can be spotted through a wall, then a person could be with just some refinement as a person is a heat source, just not as intense.

Aside from the concerns of the government invading privacy, such technology has the benefit of being used in the SAR sector.

 

Now isn't that funny - the paraniods who tin foiled everything were right all along.....

 

It's a totalitarian's dream come true.

 

If I recall, the ruling maintained that looking through walls was a violation of the 4th amendment because the average Joe can't look through walls: It takes special equipment that is uncommon and expensive. That ruling did not close the door on looking through walls. What if the equipment becomes common and inxpensive?

 

Interesting, I wonder if it causes cancer?
Josh

 

OW, my Sperm!!!!!

/Futurama

 

Crosshair

You own a whale???

 

Didn't the courts recently rule that drug sniffing dogs sampling the exterior of vehicles or structures did NOT constitute a search, i.e, they were only sampling the air surrounding...hence no warrants needed?

By the same reasoning, using these other technologies, merely amounts to sampling the emanations from closed-off areas (infra-red spectrum, visible light photons, radar reflections, etc.) ==>no warrants required.

Wave goodbye, fourth amendment...only a matter of time, and the appropriate test case.

 

Soon we all will be deported to City 17.......

 

Try this on for size. http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24486

It seems that this young lady had a 2-1/2" knife in her car at school. Know how they found it? Drug sniffing dogs hit on her car. Know where she got the car? A police impound where it had been seized for contraband of some sort. (One article says drugs and another says alcohol).

So the potential here is if the cops sell you a tainted car, they can find "evidence" by searching it, seizing it, and selling it to the next poor dupe. Rinse and repeat.

The original article has fallen into the archives but can be accessed for a $2.00 fee for 24 hour access at https://secure.coloradosprings.com/gazette/singlecopy/

 

I just had a vision of Rainbow Six's Heartbeat sensor