Listening Robot Senses Snipers

Dr. Eggman writes "Popular Science has a brief piece on the RedOwl, a brainy-looking flightless robot that can 'read a nametag from across a football field and identify the make and model of a rifle fired a mile away simply by analyzing the sound of the distant blast.' For a paltry $150,000, the machine utilizes robotic hearing technology originally developed by Boston University's Photonics Center to improve hearing aids to sense a shot fired and pinpoint its source, identify it as a hostile or friendly weapon, and illuminate the target with a laser visible only with night vision. The RedOwl, built on an iRobot packbot platform and controlled via a modified Xbox videogame controller, can figure out the location of a target 3,000 feet away, allowing troops to call in a precision air strike."

Real evidence...

[creimer (824291)]

That video game AI snipers are cheaters!

Re:

[flyingsquid (813711)]

This robot is exactly the wrong approach to be taking in a counterinsurgency. Great, you've figured out where the sniper is holed up, and dropped a 500 lb. bomb on his head. Your $150,000 robot and your $20,000 guided bomb have now taken out exactly one (1) Iraqi insurgent. In the process, you've managed to piss off all the residents of the building by dropping high explosives on their homes, and pissed off all their friends and relatives, and convinced those people that you don't really give a shit about t

Re:Real evidence...

[Eskarel (565631)]

If you would RTFA, or for that matter RTFSummary, you'd notice that they aren't painting for air strikes(though that is an option), they're painting the target for soldiers with night vision goggles. You don't drop a 500 lb bomb on the sniper(unless you have to), you light him up like a Christmas tree and shoot him in the head with a 50 cent bullet.

Whether you're going to find snipers not using night vision goggles in light situations that allow for the use of night vision goggles I don't know, but I think the camera is supposed to provide you with an image in daylight.

The whole point of this device is not having to drop a 500 lb bomb to clear out snipers, and of course to stop people from getting shot when they're trying to find the sniper.

Re:

[westlake (615356)]

You don't drop a 500 lb bomb on the sniper, you light him up like a Christmas tree and shoot him in the head with a 50 cent bullet.

For the civilian in Iraq, it's safe to assume that someone wants your head.
Uniforms mean nothing. The sniper is everyone's enemy and there is no real downside to taking him out.

Re:

[rucs_hack (784150)]

So what if then a sniper in a suberban area were, say, sat way back in a room, shooting out of a window?

The acoustics would alter the sound significantly would they not? More so then if he were sat right in a window.

I'm sure there would be ways to mess with such a device.

Re:

[Mercedes308 (832423)]

Typical sniper doctrine in urban areas is to layup far back from the window threshold and also camouflage themselves against the background I.E. appropriately coloured blankets. The developers would have no doubt studied sniper doctrines from various forces around the world and would have accounted for this issue.

Re:

[forgetmenot (467513)]

You are assuming that most snipers likely to be encountered are professionally trained.

What's a pissed off farmer shooting at passing soldiers while hiding in his barn?
Or say an Iraqi kid, hiding in a bombed out apartment flat, shooting at soldiers with a an abandoned AK
Or a conscript cowering in fear amongst rubble taking pot shots with the rifle that was thrust into his hands.
Hell, even a regular grunt who moves into a flanking position to try to pick off a few oppenonts while relatively concealed is a sn

Re:

[Xaoswolf (524554)]

Or what if the sniper had a silencer???

Or what if he shot the robot first???

Or what if the sniper was using one of those robot guns from that online hunting thing from a while back???

Or what if the sniper sniper wasn't really a sniper but a gorilla wearing big spikey gloves and jacked up on PCP???

Re:Real evidence...

[Babbster (107076)]

You seem to be confusing "strategy" with "tactics" - this is a tactical device. The bottom line is that if you have a sniper firing at your troops you have two options: Find the sniper and take him or her out, or leave the area (well, three, if you count just going on by in an armored vehicle). You're right that you wouldn't want to take out a sniper with a bomb if the sniper is in a densely populated area, but you can still use the described device to locate the sniper for either evasion or evasion plus attack (going into the apartment building in your scenario or using a friendly sniper to take out the enemy).

Once the sniper is shooting, it's a bit too late to prevent him from doing so by making him your friend.

Re:Real evidence...

[msouth (10321)]

It's a great thing to be able to know where the threat is, first off. It's a huge improvement over knowing nothing.

Second, the stuff I've read from milblogs and the like leads me to believe that there are rules about what they will hit. This doesn't change that. It's not like the robot has a missile launcher on it's back that it can autonomously respond with. This makes it easier to have a measured response because you know exactly where the threat is.

If you were really concerned about decreasing collateral damage, I think you would consider this a huge benefit. But hey, don't let me stop you from thinking with your political platform!

Re:Real evidence...

[spyder913 (448266)]

According to my brother, who just got out of Iraq on his second tour, their ROI have been updated to basically say that if someone is shooting at them they can engage. Previously they had to escalate and get someone who isn't even in the field to okay any engagement.

Re:Real evidence...

[plover (150551)]

The robot isn't the problem. The response of calling in an air strike may lead to the results you describe. But calling in your own counter-snipers is a much more fine-grained and appropriate response.

First, anything to help our troops identify and kill those directly responsible for carrying out attacks on them is a huge benefit. I think counter-snipers are the best solution, but they're few and far between. A ground assault on the building would be a lower-key response, but much more risky to American lives. Precision air strikes are a safer alternative to an assault, but as you point out they cause casualties and are visible reminders of the occupation. But letting a sniper live is never the right answer.

The civilians don't care much if Americans kill insurgents, as long as they only kill insurgents. You have to understand that most of the Iraqis are completely sick of the war. They don't care who's fighting whom, who's blowing up whom, they just want it done, they want us out, they want the insurgents to stop.

Unfortunately, "making nice" isn't going to help. There is only a tiny group of people who are responsible for what's happening. They have adopted religion to carry out their agenda, and the power structure of Islam (imams have the local authority to decree whatever they want) makes it pathetically easy for them to subvert it to their own ends by convincing a few crazy fundamentalist imams to follow them. They use attacks for recruitment (as you point out, if the attacks stopped recruitment would drop.) But the attacks don't stop, because the leaders of the insurgency don't want them stopped. For example, the latest rounds of bombing in Baghdad have been in markets serving all faiths; Sunnis, Shiites and Christians all died from the same bomb blast. It's pretty obvious to an outside observer that the goal isn't "kill the Shiites or kill the Sunnis"; instead it's "kill civilians to pressure America and foster more hatred." And it's also become more apparent to everyone that the insurgency has always been coming from Iran. The Iraqis have no particular desire to see their country bombed into the sixth century, but the Iranian "revolutionary guards" don't have to live there, now, do they?

Re:

[Divebus (860563)]

Hey! Get the people at live-shot.com on the phone! Pay-per-view sniper hunting - the true "killer app".

*frown*

[WobindWonderdog (1049538)]

Aimbot =(

upgrade for tomorrow?

[Speed Pour (1051122)]

Everything sounded pretty normal until the XBox controller...that was pretty funny.

This used to be called 'Nintendo Warfare'. I'd almost say we'll change the term to 'XBox Warfare' but it won't be long before somebody mods a Wii controller to do all of this AND make the kill shot to.

The start-up behind this tech...

[earwiggie (871202)]

is called Biomimetic Systems [biomimetic-systems.com]. It was the result of the thesis work by a former BU grad student Socrates Deligeorges. I have seen the robot in action and it is pretty awesome!

Can it hear a sniper BEFORE he shoots?

[BorgCopyeditor (590345)]

<robot-voice>IT IS QUIET HERE. . . . TOO QUIET.</robot-voice>

Advancement in technology?

[dave562 (969951)]

I saw something like this on TV a few years ago. There were some security contractors in Iraq who had a similar device that determined range and vector to gunshots. I don't remember it having the laser designator, but other than that, it was pretty much the exact same thing.

but...

[CalSolt (999365)]

Who the hell snipes at night?

I hope they don't rely on this too much...

[clragon (923326)]

The system can recognize weapons by their report, and thus ignore friendly fire.

So if any of our weapons fall into enemy hands, this robot will actually hinder handicap the user since they would be ignoring shots from the other side thinking that it's just FF?

Xbox controller?

[Heisman (1002013)]

Too bad it's not controlled by a Wii controller. Then you could just kill the sniper with the controller and avoid the air strike altogether.

I'm calling shenannigans on this one.

[djh101010 (656795)]

differentiating the make and model of a rifle fired a mile away simply by analyzing the sound of the distant blast. Sorry, bzzzt, no. There is NO way to distinguish one, let's say, 22 Long Rifle muzzle blast signature from another, reliably. You can't pretend to tell me that muzzle crowning of one model vs the other can be that specific. Location, yeah, OK, maybe, triangulation and all that. Sound signature based on make and model? Bullshiat. There's about 4 different muzzle crown profiles used, and t

Just wait till Steve Ballmer hears about this...

[Parallax Blue (836836)]

...he'll be able to call in precision chair strikes!

Laser illumination, eh?

[jcr (53032)]

So, an idea for an anti-sniper measure occured to me a couple of weeks ago. Once you've identified the location from which the shot was fired, you shine a laser at it at an intensity such that if you're looking at it with the naked eye, you're extremely uncomfortable, but if you're looking through a scope, you lose an eye. I wonder what would happen to casualty rates for US soldiers in Iraq if sniping was a two-shot career.

-jcr

Re:

[rtechie (244489)]

Once you've identified the location from which the shot was fired, you shine a laser at it at an intensity such that if you're looking at it with the naked eye, you're extremely uncomfortable, but if you're looking through a scope, you lose an eye.

Besides the aformentioned Geneva issues (laser weapons used for blinding being needlessly cruel), what's the point? Targeting the scope at the proper angle seems to be a MUCH more difficult issue than you take into consideration. And if you can target the scope we

What about sound reflections?

[nexuspal (720736)]

A common sniper tactic is to position yourself in a location where hills and other terrain will reflect sound back to the target, confusing the target as to the actual location of your fires. Couldn't sound reflection be brought into play and give the device the wrong location, or a set of wrong locations?

Echo! Echo? Echo.

[StikyPad (445176)]

...the machine utilizes robotic hearing technology...to sense a shot fired and pinpoint its source.

The problem is that it's simple to pinpoint a source out in the open, but it's much more difficult to determine the source in an urban environment with all of the occlusions and echoes caused by buildings, vehicles, etc. I'm sure this thing works great in the lab, but I doubt it would fare as well in real urban combat.

Re:Echo! Echo? Echo.

[Illserve (56215)]

You're missing out on the key point that is alluded to in the summary.

They've finally developed a flightless robot.

Flightless! It does not fly, AT ALL. Mankind has been dreaming of this since the dawn of science fiction... robots that don't go flying all over the place. awesome.

Re:Echo! Echo? Echo.

[jmv (93421)]

Actually, echo shouldn't be too much of a problem because it always arrives *after* the initial sound -- as long as you've got line of sight, which I'm guessing would be the main limitation. I suspect another source of error would be the refraction caused by temperature gradients, but I'm not sure how much effect that has. Otherwise, I also share your impression that this is probably a great lab gadget...

There is only one problem with a sniper

[guruevi (827432)]

They 1 - hide, very very good, so even if you lasertag the area, you'll have difficulty finding him and 2 - a smart sniper doesn't stay in the same location popping 10-ths of bullets in people's brains. Snipers are supposed to be single-shot accurate and have a mission to kill a certain person, whether that be a commander, a guard or whatever it may be, if you want more people dead, you deploy a force with a little bigger firepower. The problem (these days in the military too) is that people have been watching too much high-suspense movies and they're using resources like snipers the same way as well as making 'solutions' to counter Hollywood-style military personnel. I've got family that is in Iraq (he's actually got sniper training) and he can tell you all about the use of 100's of military personnel to guard a small area while other areas are under-stabilized and the misuse of their skills to reflect more 'American' style high-suspense combat fighting against guerilla and other 'insurgents' that can transform from civilians walking around on the marketplace to fighter-with-automatic-rifle in a few seconds.

Re:There is only one problem with a sniper

[Builder (103701)]

I think you're thinking about a professionally trained sniper operating under military command. What is being discussed here is something different. Have a look into the Bosnia and Sarejevo (sp?) campaigns and you'll find a lot of exactly this kind of sniping going on.

Guys would setup in a good position and stay there for days at a time. Building to building and Building to road fire was common. The problem was partly the UN mandate in the area didn't always allow them to go after these people, and partly that the sniper positions were difficult to assault without causing collateral damage.

In most of the cases that I have read, snipers were taken out either when a building was bombed, or by snipers from the opposite team. Staying in one place allowed the good guys to get a fix and setup their own sniper in a position to challenge the enemy sniper.

Re:why?

[MindStalker (22827)]

Its not uncommon really. Sometimes a sniper has a very good protective spot and you can't get to the spot itself without fighting through other enemies.

Re:

[camperdave (969942)]

Why would you call in a precision air strike for a lonely sniper?

It doesn't need to be an air strike. Lots of rocket propelled grenades can lock onto a laser designated target.

Re:

[Prysorra (1040518)]

Not always. While your support for zee troops is appreciated, you must remember that the troops aren't always the target.

Important Iraqi politicians can and do get whacked from time to time. It would be nice to know who's doin' the killing.

Re:Kevlar a better investment?

[Chandon Seldon (43083)]

This kneejerk reaction: "Bah! New stuff is worse than old reliable stuff" isn't appropriate for concept prototypes.

I absolutely agree that only proven technology should be rolled out en-mass, but developments like this robot are extremely valuable. Even if it utterly doesn't work, that's fine - they'll still learn a bunch about automatic auditory sensors, single sensor location calculation, and building robots.

As for the tactical utility of this sort of thing - it absolutely can't be replicated by armored vests. Kevlar does *nothing* against a high powered rifle. Even if every soldier always wore the armor necessary to stop a 7.62 mm rifle round cold, it would be heavy and hot, and they'd just get sniped in the face and upper leg more often. The thing that's really annoying about a sniper isn't that they can injure someone; it's that if you run into a sniper moving through an urban setting you're stopped dead until you can figure out where they are - this can really slow down any kind of urban troop movement. With this robot (conceptually), it reduces the sniper to only one shot - then since you know where they are you can take them out and keep going.

Negative

[Soulfader (527299)]

The troops have body armor. The troops have more body armor than most of them really want to wear--plates designed to stop armor piercing 7.62 rounds inside kevlar vests with supplemental side plates and extra shrapnel protection. Interesting red herring, but not a factor.

I find it hard to believe that the thing would really work as well as they claim in a peaceful urban noise environment, let alone a hostile one. Echoes, explosions, and just sheer volume of noise... Still, for an isolated shot in an oth

Re:Body armor doesn't stop AK47 == 7.62 bullets

[Kagura (843695)]

Short Answer: Actually, you are incorrect. Our armor is designed to take multiple hits from 7.62-mm ammunition.


Long answer: What the hell are you talking about? This isn't Desert Storm, this is 2007, baby. Check out the Interceptor Body Armor [wikipedia.org], which has been standard issue for all troops being deployed for a while now.

There are parts of the Interceptor Body Armor that are made of only Kevlar for its flexible properties, such as the groin protector that is hanging off the body armor in the picture. However, as the op says correctly, the thin Kevlar is not designed to take anything more than 9-mm rounds, ideally. The actual parts designed to accept 7.62-mm rounds, "stop plates" as some call them, cover the entire from torso from collarbone to belt buckle, front and back. They are made from some rather advanced ceramics. Nowadays, they even issue armor for your sides and your shoulders, two common places some people get shot and end up dying.

We also wear helmets [wikipedia.org]. In the Army, they're commonly referred to simply as "Kevlars" (Typical example: "Uniform for the EST will be IBA with your kevlar, no LCE." Translation: That means you're going to the computer-simulated firing range with your Interceptor Body Armor and your helmet, but you're not bringing your 'pistol belt' or the canteens and ammo pouches that are typically attached to the pistol belt. The army loves acronyms). Anyway, there are true stories of kevlars taking 7.62 rounds and surviving, but even the helmet made out of kevlar molded to a hard, shaped shell is only designed to accept 9-mm rounds.

And thusly return us to the original short answer, that is: Troops in Iraq wear body armor that takes multiple 7.62-mm rounds. Stay classy, San Di-Slashdot.

Re:

[Dr. Eggman (932300)]

I suppose it might have a serious dampening effect, but considering it can identify the unsilenced gunfire from about a mile away, the significantly quieter but not completly silent silenced gun should still be caught at some distance. I would be more conscious of masking the gunfire to sound like something the robot will or ignore. Worse yet, we have to be sure the designers have included the ability to ignore other types of bangs, like a car backfiring.

Re:

[tgrimley (585067)]

Except you lose a lot of muzzle velocity by adding a silencer..

Re:Thats just one more reason to use a silencer

[StikyPad (445176)]

Not really.. The real problem is that it's much more effective to use subsonic ammunition with a suppressor, otherwise there's that whole "sonic boom" thing to contend with. Subsonic ammunition doesn't have a very flat trajectory, and is more susceptible to wind (simply because it spends more time in the air over a given distance) which makes it almost useless for sniping.

Re:Thats just one more reason to use a silencer

[jahurska (883728)]

Except that the sonic boom caused by bullet is not pinpointable. When the bullet flies supersonic, it's creating those sonic booms the whole way (or until it drops below speed of sound). For example one of my sniper trainers was crazy enough to go downrange when another trainer shot a supersonic round with silencer (both were sufficiently good at their trade to have enough trust) and he said that sound of the shot came from completely different direction from where the shooter was. In my opinion and this is also the opinion of my sniper trainers is that every sniper should use silencer. In addition of removing the bang of the rifle, it also reduces recoil and the puff of dirt caused by the supersonic gasses exiting the muzzle.

Also almost anyone with some skills can construct a silencer. Simplest designs is that you have several metal disks with hole in the middle which matches the caliber of the bullet and those disks are arranged in line, attached to each other with regular interval and covered with a metal sheet.

The wikipedia article is good one on this, although the silencer design presented is more complex what I presented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor [wikipedia.org]

And the subsonic rounds are not useless for sniper operations. If I remember correctly, when USSR was in Afganistan, the insurgents used .22LR rifles with silencers in close range. Usually in constructed areas and aiming at the gaps of the protective gear.

The ability of the robot to find the range and distance of a shot by the bang of the rifle, is nothing new. I believe that US army has that kind of hardware already in some of their hummers. It is also possible to know the direction of a shot by only the flight sound of the bullet, but that requires several 'listening posts' and a central computer to calculate, but this only gets the direction of the shot, not the distance. And in constructed areas usually calculating correct direction is impossible as the sound bounces from the walls. I don't know if this robot can still pinpoint the direction and distance from the bang of the rifle, if there is walls offering echos etc, but atleast human ear is fooled about the direction. There is also equipment that tries to find the bullet inflight with radar etc, but my understanding those are not yet in use because they are not very reliable.

I think that this robot is the number one target for snipers. Shoot it first and then you're home free unless there is a second one :). I probably wouldn't shoot anything else, but this robot before exiting the area, because $150,000 is probably the most damage I could make with a single bullet :).

Thermal imaging for finding snipers is not new also, and usually the military uniforms are made so that they present as low thermal image as possible. Snipers can be invisible in thermal image also as to naked eye. I don't think that the Iraq insurgents have enough training for that, but probably they will adapt if this robot is introduced in Iraq. Although I cannot imagine why US troops in Iraq haven't used thermal imaging or bullet radars (as I've learned to call them) before..

PS. My background in this is that I have completed basic sniper training from Finnish defence forces and I have read several respected books on the subject.

Re:

[lax-goalie (730970)]

Doubtful. Most high-power rifles shoot a projectile that leave the muzzle at supersonic velocity -- what you hear is essentially a mini sonic boom, especially at extended ranges. Even if silencers worked as well as they do in the movies (which they don't), silencers can't do anything about the supersonic crack. The round of choice in many a silenced weapon is a .22 short, since its a subsonic round. Guys I know say that that's great choice if you're doing "wet work" with a pistol, but it makes a pretty crap

Re:

[ktakki (64573)]

Silencers (suppressors) on rifles, though they exist, are of limited use.

First of all, the percussive sound of the powder detonating in the cartridge isn't what gives away a sniper. It's the sound of the round breaking the sound barrier. The solution is to use a subsonic round along with a suppressor, but then you're giving up velocity and kinetic energy, along with range and lethality.

Suppressors and subsonic rounds are more often used in pistols, and in close range work (e.g., killing someone in the sam

Re:

[chris_martin (115358)]

There are no silencers for (military) sniper rifles. What you see that looks like one are muzzle flash suppressors. For a sniper rifle, a silencer would be pointless since they fire supersonic bullets, so dampening the initial bang does next to nothing.

Suppressors are used for a lot of different tasks in the military, including snipers. There is a lawsuit right now about a military contract bid dispute right now (OPS Inc Vs. Knights Armament in a US Navy SEALS SOCOM bid awarded to Knights when OPS Inc. was cheaper)
All the major vendors of US suppressors have contracts with the US military (Advanced Armament, OPS Inc, Knights, Gemtech, etc.)
Advanced Armament have several suppressors designed for military contracts that are for sniper-type rifles (TITAN .

Re:

[camperdave (969942)]

RF guided missiles, perhaps? If the soldiers are continuously broadcasting sound and relative position data to a base station, then they may as well paint themselves fluorescent orange and do jumping jacks.

Re:

[mikael (484)]

If the soldiers are continuously broadcasting sound and relative position data to a base station, then they may as well paint themselves fluorescent orange and do jumping jacks.

That's why the military developed spread-spectrum radio communications. A radio set converted sound waves into a rapid series of short pulses that jumped from frequency to frequency using a random pattern. The idea was that it would be impossible to triangulate the location of a transmitted because any single pulse would only appear

Re:So... howabout

[camperdave (969942)]

Spread spectrum is more about anti-jamming, anti-listning and noise reduction than it is about hiding the transmitter. To triangulate, all you have to do is have a wide bandwidth receiver to listen to the entire military band. With today's DSP technology, you can probably triangulate on a spread spectrum transmitter quite easily.

Re:

[Divebus (860563)]

No, you get a box from Pep Boys with new plug wires inside.

Re:

[caffeinemessiah (918089)]

wow...you really are fed on a steady diet of CNN pictures and their associated blurbs aren't you? perhaps you should get out in the real world a little bit. also, it's a sniper detecting robot. it's quite unlikely that it would be deployed in the midst of "arabs who shoot guns in the air to celebrate". and i'm assuming that the soldiers who use the bot have enough sense to differentiate a crowd of happy people with guns from a sniper on a roof somewhere. what's that you say? it was a joke? hmm.....

Re:cool robot but...

[Divebus (860563)]

The four microphones would be in a known fixed position. Knowing that sound travels at 344 meters/sec, not all the microphones will pick up the sound at the same instant. There will be millisecond differences between the microsphones as the sound passes over the array. You can then use software to phase correlate the sound impulses and get a very accurate triangulation of the direction it came from. Putting microphones on individual troops who move around will destroy the ability to measure the delays - you don't know exactly how far apart the microphones are and therefore don't know what the standard delay time is.