Modified radar gun identifies suicide bombers up to ten meters away
27th November 2010
William Fox of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and John Vesecky, his colleague at UC Santa Cruz, are working on a modified radar gun that can identify suicide bombs worn under the clothing. To do this, they cataloged the most common arrangements of looped wires used to construct “suicide vests,” and developed software that can identify the radar cross-section of each. So far, results have been pretty good: according to New Scientist, “telltale factors in the polarisation of the reflected signals” allowed them to correctly identify volunteers dressed as bombers up to ten meters away, roughly eighty-five percent of the time.
Not sure how much good that will do, since the typical blast radius of a suicide bomber’s vest is rather more than ten meters, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.
November 29th, 2010 at 11:50
I’d rather see them devise a device that emits an EMF pulse that sets off blasting caps. We have the technology; put it to use.