In the first ever crowd-sourcing competition using social media to design a combat vehicle, DARPA has awarded Victor Garcia 1st place for his Flypmode design. Logic-Cool had covered this topic previously here. The winning model will actually be built as a concept model later this June. I consider the idea of this competition more exciting than any of the vehicles themselves, in essence allowing everyday people and enthusiasts to pool their knowledge and design assets far quicker than the normal bureaucratic process.

The process for creating the XC2V vehicle itself serves as a proof of concept. If it works, DARPA will refine the process of crowd-sourcing and start a series of prize challenges that will result in a true infantry fighting vehicle…It takes us 10 or 20 years to develop a complex military system like a jet or a ship or a tank. We want to reduce that by ...

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The U.S. Army has assigned the 1st female combatives instructor to Fort Benning. Standing at 5 foot, 7 inches, Spc. Teddra Rodriguez finds her shorter height and lower weight to be an advantage and instructs male soldiers not to underestimate women. While dispelling stereotypes among the men, she firmly instructs them never to hold back when training with an American female soldier. Women soldiers need to know if her techniques can truly save their lives, and they can't do that if the men hold back.

Teddra Rodriguez - Photo by Kristin Molinaro 

The U.S. Marine Corps has requested that Taser International of Scottsdale, Arizona develop a "taser grenade" that can be fired from a M32 six-shot grenade launcher and incapacitate targets out to range of 100 meters for 30 seconds. 

Civilian taser products only incapacitate targets for 5 secs.  Naturally, the military needs the 30 second window in order to close the distance with an enemy in a hundred meter dash. However, the shock duration of the new taser grenade can be extended to several minutes, which I honestly think will have to be the case.

If tests are successful, the U.S. military will fast-track the new weapon into Afghanistan.

The M-32 is already an incredibly fearsome battlefield weapon, able to fire 6 grenades in under 3 seconds...and some grenade rounds can be shot over 440 yards, hitting a target more than four football fields away.

Originally funded by the U.S. military, California firm TiaLinx has created a radar robot that can hear a human breathe through a solid concrete wall. The new Cougar20-H radar robot will potentially help rescue workers detect survivors after future natural disasters, such as the recent earthquake in New Zealand.  In addition, the new radar robot will be used to scan cars crossing the border. The new robot will be controllable out to 300 feet with a laptop and will make its debut next month.

CEO Fred Mohamadi of TiaLinx states:

“Originally the products were developed to be able to detect unexploded ordinance, in road, off road. As time went out and we could really master the technology, we could even detect the slightest movements."

 

I'm a bit late noticing this development, but better late than never. The U.S. military's premiere research agency DARPA wants two new kinds of robots: one that can run faster than the fastest humans and another one agile.  Wired has a good article as well.

The winner of the contract is Boston Dynamic, a spin-off company from MIT that began building robots that can maneuver like animals.  They will base the first robot off a cheetah and the second will be humanoid.

The CHEETAH will not only be able to chase down human targets, but will be a rescue "animal" as well...able to turn sharp corners, highly uneven landscapes and even potentially running into burning buildings to rescue people caught in a fire. 

Hoping to reduce their normal 10-20 year design cycle for future military tech by a factor of 10, DARPA has opened up design for the next generation of rescue vehicles to the general public.  In response, they've received dozens of ideas from ordinary people through a social media contest called XC2V Challenge. Similar to how Wikipedia functions, the military hopes that the expertise available through crowd-sourcing builds and compounds upon itself.  

DARPA will judge the submissions and build a concept model from the winner in June. Final submissions are due March 3.  The program offers $10,000 in prizes.

Wowza...the Navy just set a world record by testing a 500 kilovolt electron laser that can burn through 20 feet of steel per second.  The previous limit had been 320 kilovolts.  The next step involves further weaponization.  The Navy recently awarded Boeing a $163 million dollar contract to to take this technology and package somehow as a 100 kilowatt weapons system that can fit neatly on a destroyer. 

In addition, according to Navy officials, the FEL laser can perform at different wavelengths, meaning it can operate at lower and more powerful levels so that it can be used for different applications, which other laser technology cannot. It is also not vulnerable to atmospheric conditions, as solid-state lasers are, making them wane in power depending on the weather.

Logic-Cool also covered the Navy's other recent breakthrough with laser technology here.

The U.S. military's premier research agency revealed that its new hummingbird spybot has passed its first flight test. The little bird-sized robot promises to revolutionize intelligence gathering, and probably other battlefield tactics as well. Remember, the Predator began as a surveillance craft too.

The bird appearance is meant to disguise it from enemy forces, though military planners admit that hummingbirds look out of place in most regions outside of the Americas. 

On February 1st, Russia launched a high-tech Geo-IK 2 satellite in order to create a comprehensive 3D map of Earth's military targets. Shortly after, the Russians lost contact with their probe only to find it again, but now in an incorrect orbit that renders its mission impossible.

A member of the task force investigating the space accident stated:

"The probable cause may involve electromagnetic intrusion on the automatic controls.

...the Russian source stressed that the accident occurred between the first and second burns of the Briz-KM upper-stage booster rocket — an area in which the craft makes no contact with ground control. The official suggested that the electromagnetic pulse may have been aimed at the Russian craft "from a land, sea, air or space vehicle".

Mainstream society, both domestically and internationally, accepts the idea that the U.S. probably has military technology beyond what it publicly reveals. While not openly ...

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New guidance systems will allow U.S. infantry soldiers in a battlefield to launch mortars rounds and hit within 10 meters of a target up to 11 miles. Very impressive. Smarter weapons usually equate to less collateral damage and civilian lives lost.  

Air Force researchers used aeronautic principles to create a power generator that could theoretically convert the energy of Earth's ocean currents with 99% efficiency. Their prototype consists of a main power shaft and a few hydrofoils to keep the device afloat. The hydrofoils are able to adjust themselves, somewhat similar to a helicopter, to the incoming wave's direction.

The work was performed on a 1:1300 scale model. 99% is an incredible conversion ratio, but a lot can happen in between their current scale and the real tamale. The turbine has proven so promising that the Department of Energy has awarded the researchers another $400,000 to build a 1:10 scale model. The next steps involve studying ways to transport the generated power to an electrical grid and improve the generator's durability in severe weather.

Earth's oceans represent a titanic amount of untapped, renewable energy ...

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Can't believe I missed this one, but better late than never. The U.S. Navy successfully conducted the first test flight of its latest combat drone last Friday. The X-47B is not only faster and capable of longer range flights than the Predator and Reaper, but is also the first drone capable of landing on an aircraft carrier, making it a truly versatile weapon. The X-47B comes armed with laser-guided bombs, stealth capabilities, can refuel in mid-air and serve as a reconnaissance vehicle for days at a time. And of course the ultimate benefit, human pilots grow tired and hungry while the X-47B never will.  

Army officials have revealed that the new "Enhanced Combat Helmet" is so strong that their engineers can't penetrate them with simulated IED's. In fact, the new helmets are so durable that new test weapons need to be developed in order to figure out exactly how strong they are.

Project manager Col. William Cole states:

"The ECH is a little bit thicker, also about an ounce to four ounces lighter depending on the size. But it's really a huge leap ahead forward in terms of head protection capability...The data we're getting from the prototypes going into the milestone was even better than we hoped...We had hoped for a 35-percent improvement over the ACH in terms of ballistic protection and it's way better than that...In this case the test guns they had couldn't shoot fragments fast enough to penetrate the helmet...We don ...

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Whoa...holy cow! Every once in a while someone in the world comes along and reminds us what a true hero really looks like. A 35 year-old Gurkha soldier named Bishnu Shrestha was riding a train when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a massive robbery. 40 men armed with knives, swords and guns stormed the train and began robbing the passengers.

Bishnu kept his peace while the gang snatched cell phones, jewelry and cash from other riders. But then, the thugs grabbed the 18 year-old girl sitting next to him and forcefully stripped her naked. Before the bandits could rape the poor girl in front of her helpless parents, Bishnu decided he had enough.

“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister.” 

Here's the part ...

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U.S. soldier Jonathan Springer spent $26,000 of his own money to develop an iPhone app that helps you hunt the Taliban. Called Tactical Nav, his little program comes with a digital compass, gives waypoints, tracks enemies, allows you to plot battlefields and direct artillery fire.

Yet another great development today, especially in military news. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science used artificial natural selection to create enzymes that successfully protect against the effects of nerve gas. Discoveries like this potentially save many lives, because as one of the article's comments aptly observes, if an enemy knows unleashing nerve gas won't be effective...they're less likely to do it in the first place. This will eventually remove nerve gas as a battlefield weapon, but unfortunately it remains a potent terrorist tool, as targeted civilians likely won't have such remedies at hand.

This batch of military news doesn't seem very surprising. Back in the 90's when President Clinton ordered the bombing of Yugoslavia, one U.S. stealth fighter jet was shot down, an F-117 Nighthawk.  In the aftermath, the Chinese government (and the Russians) sent agents buying up all the scrap pieces and debris from the local farmers who had kept parts of the wreckage as souvenirs. 

As always, war results in unintended consequences...in this case the advancement of Chinese air-superiority technology. I remember this being reported back during Clinton's terms, so I suppose this development was a long time in the making.

Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo War, says:

"We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies ... and to reverse-engineer them."

Alexander Huang of Taipei's Tamkang University, an expert on China's ...

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The U.S. Navy reports that tests back in December of their Free Electron Laser program were so successful, that it has moved the project 9 months ahead of schedule. The Free Electron Laser relies upon massive streams of electrons generated by an injector.  The December tests involved a new injector that has apparently moved the new laser into the megawatt range (mega = million).

The Free Electron Laser will primarily be a defensive weapon aimed at shooting down multiple incoming missiles and enemy planes simultaneously. However, the laser is so versatile that it will also serve as a sensor, a tracker and a guidance system for a ship's conventional missiles and ordinance.

For this new system to become an offensive "death ray", the laser would require over 100 kilowatts of power. So far, the Navy's prototype can only produce 14.  

As discussed on Logic-Cool before, the Navy will ...

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Hewlett-Packard prepares to shake up the world of computer monitors later this year by introducing a flexible display that can bend without cracking. Made from plastic, HP intends for soldiers to use them as map displays in a battlefield. Farther down the road, HP intends their baby to inspire a whole slew of new products, including displays sewn into clothing, tablet computers that you can roll up like a newspaper and even "Post-It note" monitors that you can just slap on the refrigerator or wall.

Before all this juicy gizmo goodness hits the market though, HP wants to be in prime position to replace all the glass displays in smartphones and tablets. After all, their plastic monitors won't break when you drop them. Plus, while monitors might be able to bend, computer-makers still need to figure out how to make bendable computers. 

HP isn't the only horse in ...

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Dubbed "Blue Devil" and costing $211 million, the envisioned super blimp will be 7 times larger than the Goodyear blimp at 350 feet in length, and will hover in the air 4 miles in altitude for a week at a time. Quite honestly, the U.S. military should know better than to name a project Blue Devil against a religiously motivated foe. Other than that, the Wired article segues nicely into our Logic-Cool discussion post here. Unable to field enough manpower to analyze all of Blue Devil's incoming data, instead the military intends to use 2,000 single core servers to help process their intelligence and transmit it to soldiers in the field in under 15 seconds. The first flight is currently scheduled for October 15.