William Dunn, a Kansas State University engineer, and his research team have developed a patented technique that improves military security and remotely detects improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The same technique could help police during drug searches. Created with a grant from the US Marine Corps and private funding, the technique has promise in detecting the most common chemical explosives, nitrogen-rich explosives.
Dunn created a template-matching technique called signature-based radiation scanning to determine the presence of explosives. The template-matching technique works similar to a bar code. Dunn's team has created templates for nitrogen-rich explosives and if a material matches one of these templates, then it potentially contains nitrogen-rich explosives.
To detect explosives, soldiers can place a sensor on an unmanned vehicle or aircraft that travels ahead of troops and tests road surfaces and other areas for IEDs. The sensor uses the template-matching method to search for the presence of explosives. The sensor then uses red, green or yellow lights to communicate back to soldiers who are in a safe place. The red light tells soldiers that nitrogen-rich explosives are present, while a green light means there are no nitrogen-rich explosives and a yellow light means a material might contain nitrogen-rich explosives.
Currently, the unmanned system can work for distances around 1 to 3 meters away, but the researchers would like to make the system effective at 100-meter distances, which is nearly the length of a football field, Dunn said.
These appear to be the patents (which were filed in 2008 and published in 2012). On the other hand, explosives been getting more deadly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tathra on Thursday April 17 2014, @11:35PM
dear god, i hope not. drug laws are somewhat unique in that even if the courts find a search illegal or warrant illegitimate, the evidence is still allowed, in addition to all seized assets remaining forever seized (see US vs Leon [wikipedia.org]), claiming that the officer "acted in good faith" (stories like this [informatio...ration.com], where the officer claims to have "smelled chemicals used to make meth" but find no evidence to support it are far too common). this would basically give cops carte blanche to raid and search whoever they wanted, claiming that it indicated there were drugs on the person/premises (thus allowing all of the illegally obtained evidence to be admitted). the last thing we need is for it to be easier for more people to get arrested for non-violent, victimless "crimes", especially when no crime has even been committed.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday April 18 2014, @03:15AM
> this would basically give cops carte blanche to raid and search whoever they wanted,
> claiming that it indicated there were drugs on the person/premises
They already do. [8newsnow.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday April 17 2014, @11:55PM
The article is interesting for what it doesn't say, cleverly diverts your attention to blinking lights and bar codes and only hints on what is really going on:
Translation: (guessing - I assume this is secret) it irradiates the objects of interest and looks at the backscatter and measures the absorption/reflection patterns.
The key bit they gloss over is the radiation used, and the method of deployment, and the risk to operators of said radiation, (I'm guessing significantly less than the risk of the IED).
and the means to deploy it.
Alternatively, it could just be a sniffer, but I suspect not. That technology is already well deployed.
How much of this obfuscation is due to Professor Dunn, and how much is the work of Journalism Major Jennifer Tidball is anyone's guess.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday April 18 2014, @01:04AM
The key bit they gloss over is the radiation used, and the method of deployment, and the risk to operators of said radiation, (I'm guessing significantly less than the risk of the IED). and the means to deploy it.
The only curious claim is the 1-3 meters of detection distance. I do not think that an UAV can fly that low and that close to suspicious objects.
This technology may be defeated by deployment of decoy materials that look like explosive to the scanner, but are harmless.
it irradiates the objects of interest and looks at the backscatter and measures the absorption/reflection patterns.
The power of reflected signal is inversely proportional to the distance in power 4. It may not be all that trivial to increase the detection distance from 1m to 100m, especially when you do not have sensitive detectors and good beamforming methods.
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Friday April 18 2014, @01:12AM
UAV doesn't necessarily mean Predator Drone. Could certainly be mounted to something more like those cheap quadcopter toys. A ground vehicle would probably make a lot more sense, but if you've got rough terrain a very low-flying helicopter of sorts could be great.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday April 18 2014, @01:46AM
UAV doesn't necessarily mean Predator Drone. Could certainly be mounted to something more like those cheap quadcopter toys.
I'm afraid that a quadcopter just doesn't have the power budget to run a remote sensing apparatus. Imagine the dental X-ray machine at the office to start with... it works at 10" with a pass-through beam. Then imagine that the beam is reflected, and the distance is 1 to 3 meters, and that the objects are not as predictable as a human body. I'd say the thing requires about a kilowatt of power to run; but you can't have a kW on a copter; you'd be hard pressed to even have 10W from a battery.
Perhaps the TSA RapeScan machine is a good equivalent here, as it does pretty much the same thing at the same distance. How much power does it draw? At least a couple kW, IMO, not counting the computers.
Quadcopters are also limited by the mass that they can lift. But, of course, those are only my random thoughts. Can't say much without seeing the equipment.
(Score: 1) by urza9814 on Friday April 18 2014, @02:53AM
So build the quadcopter bigger ;) Seriously though, I said something *like* those little toys -- obviously it would be much larger and more powerful if it was being used in a military context. Maybe a better description would be a miniature Chinook. If we're starting from the assumption that this thing could actually be stuck onto a UAV, I don't see any reason that UAV couldn't be a copter of some sort. Which should be much easier to maneuver.
Presumably the next steps are making the thing smaller and more efficient. It also depends how it's being used -- whether it's scanning continuously or just scanning individual suspicious objects. If the latter they could potentially use a much smaller battery to charge up some caps to get enough instantaneous current to run a scan. If it needs 1kW and takes a full minute to scan, then a laptop battery should be enough to run about a dozen scans per charge. And I'm picturing a copter a couple feet square, so packing on a couple of laptop batteries doesn't seem entirely unreasonable.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday April 18 2014, @03:20AM
OK, this may work. But at that scale I would go with an ICE instead of batteries. That would certainly be enough to run the scanner.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 18 2014, @04:31AM
You can also put the emitter on a truck, aim it forward of the motorized column and just send a sensor quadrotor out to pick up the back scatter and transmit it in real time. You don't have to put all the payload on the flying device.
Left unsaid is the amount of radiation needed to do the detection.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Friday April 18 2014, @11:04AM
Lets see how long it takes before someone uses a geigercounter as a trigger mechanism to construct an anti-uav-mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 18 2014, @08:16AM
See also: http://science.howstuffworks.com/bomb-sniffing-bee s.htm [howstuffworks.com]d /gichd.htm [jmu.edu]
http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/7.1/features/gich
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday April 18 2014, @01:47PM
Ya know what else is rich in Nitrogen compounds? Fertilizer.
So can we expect a bunch of farmers to get yellow-lit now?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday April 19 2014, @12:21AM
I can do better: urea [wikipedia.org].
We can expect the US "police" to be up to their necks in it :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))