Networked Landmines Work Together

crazedpilot writes "New landmines will soon communicate via a radio network, and move from place to place in order to be most effective." Termed the "self-healing minefield", the individual mines are capable of detecting an enemy breach and then moving to seal the gap.

Hoppers!

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

These fucking mines HOP.
I swear I use the same things in Half-Life 2.

from the site though, the best part has to be:

Technical Support for your hopping mines! [darpa.mil]

I really want to know what happens when they run out of power though?

Are they inert or do they revert to a dangerous stepper?
The inert option would seem the best since they can be tended to for the duration of the war then afterwards no children will lose their legs or anything.

Re:Hoppers!

[Aquillion (539148)]

That's easy. When they get low on power and sense somebody walking nearby, they leap onto their face and inject a cache of minefield-embryos into their belly. Within about a day or so, the host explodes, scattering a brand new fully-charged minefield where the enemy least expects it!

I must say

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

Mines that move? That is goddamn frightening.

The last thing the world needs is more landmines

[Tim C (15259)]

I'd be much more impressed if, rather than moving to seal a breach, they were capable of recognising the difference between enemy combatants and civilians who have wandered into the field (usually long after the war has finished).

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[by Anonymous Coward]

They do reduce civilian casualties.

But first can I say: holy crap! I was one of the main software engineers on this project (heck I still have the source code on my laptop) but that was like 5 years ago. NOW we get slashdotted?

In any case, the story we got was: normally, anti-tank mines are surrounded by anti-personnel mines. Anti-tank mines have magnetic triggers and are (relatively) safe for people: they are vulnerable to simply being picked up and moved out of the way. So the anti-tank mines are surrounded by APLMs to prevent the enemy from trivially disabling the field.

APLMs are the nasty ones that kill kids decades later. So in an effort to reduce the number of APLMs deployed DARPA tried this crazy idea of making self-healing anti-tank mines. in other words, since the anti-tank mines can protect themselves by moving, the anti-personnel mines are no longer necessary. And the world gets a little better.

This was a heck of a project to work on. I got to FIRE ROCKETS! Under software control! Super cool.

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[colmore (56499)]

I hope you're right. But I'm always wary of claims that new weapons will reduce human misery.

Look at non-lethal policing weapons. They haven't replaced lethal force, they've just allowed the police to weaponize conflicts they previously wouldn't have had weapons for: they can shoot first against a civilian demonstration if they aren't using bullets. I'm sure the people working on those projects imagined their technology replacing firearms. I'd be wary of working on any weapons project, no matter how rosy a picture the client painted for me.

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[Dachannien (617929)]

In addition to the mines communicating with each other, the field commanders can communicate with the landmines to detonate them remotely once they are no longer needed.

Re:The last thing the world needs is more landmine

[Saeger (456549)]

self-deactivating timers in a few months, with explosives that decay in a few years, and casings that bio-degrade in a few decades would be better. (for the winners)

Nah, costs too much.

"I'll take 100,000 dumb-mines for my $10mil, instead of only 50,000 'treehugger' mines"

Detection

[Khomar (529552)]

Wouldn't a landmine that transmits a signal be relatively easy to detect? Just look for the signal and disable the mine. On the plus side, maybe these would make it easier to clean them up when the particular war that used them was over. There are many countries that are potted with landmines from wars that ended years ago. Taking a stroll in the country in these places is extremely dangerous.

Re:Detection

[by Anonymous Coward]

The goal of a minefield is not to be secret. It's supposed to be an obstacle which requires you know where it is.

I wrote about half the code for these mines (and we're slashdotted 5 years later...). I'm sure you'll be tickled to know they use Linux.

who supports land mines ?

[by Anonymous Coward]

This is the list of the 40 countries that have not signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty as of 26 Apr 06. The 3 that have signed the treaty but not ratified are show in bold.

These signatory states have made a political commitment to joining the treaty, and they have a legal obligation not to take actions that would violate the treaty.

      1. Armenia
      2. Azerbaijan
      3. Bahrain
      4. Burma
      5. China
      6. Cuba
      7. Egypt
      8. Finland
      9. Georgia
    10. India
    11. Indonesia
    12. Iran
    13. Iraq
    14. Israel
    15. Kazakhstan
    16. Korea, North
    17. Korea, South
    18. Kuwait
    19. Kyrgyzstan
    20. Lao PDR
    21. Lebanon
    22. Libya
    23. Marshall Islands
    24. Micronesia
    25. Mongolia
    26. Morocco
    27. Nepal
    28. Oman
    29. Pakistan
    30. Palau
    31. Poland
    32. Russian Federation
    33. Saudi Arabia
    34. Singapore
    35. Somalia
    36. Sri Lanka
    37. Syria
    38. Tonga
    39. Tuvalu
    40. United Arab Emirates
    41. United States
    42. Uzbekistan
    43. Vietnam

reads like a whos who of third world countries and banana republics, what good company USA keeps

Re:who supports land mines ?

[Distinguished Hero (618385)]

Ever heard of the Korean DMZ [wikipedia.org]. The US probably plans to use these things to prevent Kim Jung-Il from invading South Korea (incidentally, both the Koreas are on your list, I wonder why...). I'm not aware of any other part of the world where the US uses landmines (care to enlighten me?). So yeah, damn the "military-industrial complex" for helping keep the South Koreans from ending up impoverished, starving, and oppressed like their brethren in the north.

reads like a whos who of third world countries and banana republics, what good company USA keeps

Actually, a huge portion of those countries are second-world or former second-world countries (communist countries that sided against the US during the Cold War). You'll also notice that China, Vietnam, India, a whole bunch of Muslim Countries (Iran, Pakistan, etc.) are on your list, so if we go by population (not number of countries), the majority of the world (or very close to it) has not joined the treaty.

Re:who supports land mines ?

[by Anonymous Coward]

People bring this up to explain the US refusing to sign the treaty but it's not really a valid point. The US could, if it wanted to, do numerous things:

1)Stop selling mines to other countries(!!!)
2)Stop using mines unilaterally, except at the DMZ in Korea
3)Negotiate a waiver for the DMZ field

The first and second options are no-brainers, the fact that the US has not done either of these and is in fact developing these new mines is utterly disgusting. We stand with the scum of the earth when we stand up for the use of mines.
The last option would involve some kind of quid pro quo where the US kicks in some significant capital for mine removal, but we have no money spending billions per week in Iraq and mine removal will save a LOT of people from dying or spending their lives horrifically disfigured. Of course this will never happen since the warmongers at DOD resist all restrictions on what toys they get to play with, from mines to nuclear bunker-busters to White Phosporous to Napalm... is it any wonder the world thinks so poorly of us?

Sunset Clause

[DigitalRaptor (815681)]

We already have ~way~ too many landmines, and way too many innocents being killed or disabled by them.

IF you're going to design a high-tech landmine, for heavens sakes, design in a renewable sunset clause so that if the landmine doesn't hear from you in 30 days it disables itself. If you need to reenable it, fine, but disabled should be the default.

Self-deactivating mines already exist

[phonicsmonkey (984955)]

Self terminating mines already exist in a much simpler version - a timed deactivation mechanism preset for the estimated end of conflict. The problem is that the failure rate, i.e., the failure to deactivate, is around 5%-10%. This makes it almost as good as nothing - would you want to plow a field knowing that "only" 10% of the original mines are still active? Cluster bomb bomblets, basically small touch-sensitive tactical mines, are even worse with an estimated failure-to-explode rate around 25%-30%. The only safe minefield is a non-existant one.

It'd be great

[Junior J. Junior III (192702)]

if we could spend billions of dollars perfecting self-healing civilians. Maybe splice some lizard genes into them so they can regenerate their lost limbs...

And In Other News...

[MostAwesomeDude (980382)]

Microsoft has finally come up with a new feature to be packaged with the next version of the popular Microsoft Windows operating system, commonly known as "Windows Vista." Apparently, Microsoft plans to include a new game called "Minesweeper 2" with Vista. A Microsoft spokesman described it as "original Minesweeper, except now the mines can move around and stuff. Really, it'll be cool! We promise!"

The gaming community has had a divided response. One camp is not impressed with the new offering, and is quoted on their blog as saying, "Well, [expletive deleted] that! Where the [expletive deleted] is our [expletive deleted] Halo 2 for PC?" Other gamers were enthused about the new game, praising its innovative style and promise of quality gameplay. Says one independent reviewer, "Well, it will be here before Duke Nukem Forever, right?"

A blast from the past (sorry).

[Mr. Bad Example (31092)]

An old comment of mine from when someone mentioned this a few years ago:

> The mines decide as a group what configuration is best and then move to fill the gap.

I wonder how they go about deciding...

"Okay, Frank...hop over into that gap right there."

"Shit, no! Larry just got run over by a TANK! Did you see that shit? You hop into the gap, asshole!"

Self Healing?

[gillbates (106458)]

Since when to landmines heal anything?

An adaptive minefield would be a better term for it. They only "advance" this land mine possesses is the unique ability to be turned against friendly forces by a technologically advanced enemy. How would you like the land mines you planted hopping toward you in the middle of a fire fight?

As a former artilleryman, I can tell you that this would be close to useless. We were taught to clear minefields with artillery barrage - that is, when the first soldier encounters a mine, they all draw back and call in artillery. An artillery barrage will detonate all of the mines, regardless of whether they want to be detonated or not.

I never did like the concept of mines in the first place. They are the only munition in which a human is not involved in the targetting decision. Think about that - they'll kill anyone, or anything, indiscriminantly. U.S. mines will kill:

• Enemy soldiers
• Enemy vehicles
• U.S. soldiers
• U.S. vehicles
• Women
• Children
• Medical personnel
• Animals

Land mines are the only munition which stand a substantial liability of killing non-combatants. The aren't a humane weapon no matter how you think about it.

And this so-called advance really isn't an advance. Typically, when encountering a minefield, the infantry will call in artillery, which will detonate all the mines on the battlefield at once.

Re:Self Healing?

[dedazo (737510)]

• All mines are lethal and deadly. Even those designed to wound (yes, they exist) have an error margin (meaning they'll kill you anyway).
• There is no such thing as a "humane" weapon, unless it's specifically designed not to kill. There's no difference between a .45 hollow point slug to the head or a fuel air explosive. You're still dead. Perhaps you were thinking of scale or lethality radius.
• "US" mines will kill just as effectively as British, Russian, Chinese or Indonesian mines.
• Despite the much-publicized PR trips of famous people to victims of landmines in war-ravaged countries, landmines are still a valuable component of defensive warfare. There's a difference between using mines for clear military purposes and just sowing the countryside to see if you can kill a few kids. I'd really have the US continue to use mines in places like the DMZ than to have to rely on a larger deterrent force. Like it or not, landmines are very cost effective.
• I don't know who taught you that minefields should be cleared with artillery barrages. This has been a mistaken assumption since WWI. In the first Gulf War the US Army gave up trying to do that because the overpressure from a relatively large artillery shell would not reliably detonate the mines but instead generate cratering that made navigating the minefield even more dangerous. They even tried MLRS volleys to no avail. I believe current doctrine relies on a type of shaped charge ("bomb on a rope") that is fired from a special "gun" on a carrier vehicle over the minefield and is then detonated to create the breach. Failing that there's always the trench tool and lots of cojones.

Doesn't surprise me that new mines hae comms

[Realistic_Dragon (655151)]

The British Army are, I believe, required to mark out where minefields are and clean them up when they leave the area.

Obviously removing mines is a nervous business (unless you have one of the awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_tank">W W2 style flail tanks</a>, which look like so much fun they should be illegal) and so being able to remotley disable them makes a great deal of sense. The chance of an enemy being able to discover a 256bit AES key is essentially zero and certainly a preferable option to accidentally immolating a bunch of your own sappers in almost all circumstances.

When it's hacked...

[Lally Singh (3427)]

How about when a hacker starts sending bad "mine blown" messages to the grid, making the mines reconfigure? Maybe they keep detonating off each other, maybe they start all hopping (with some nice navigational hacking) back towards the ones who deployed them?

Developed from the Sandia hopper

[Animats (122034)]

This started with the Sandia spherical hopper [sandia.gov]. "A pre-programmed microprocessor inside the hopper reads an internal compass, and a gimbal mechanism rotates the offset-weighted internal workings so that the hopper rolls around until it is pointed in the desired direction. The combustion chamber fires, the piston punches the ground, and the hopper leaps." That was back in 1997. Now, it looks like it is approaching production.

America's army of killer robots is coming. Soon.

Aren't the old mines deadly enough?

[caluml (551744)]

Call me old fashioned, but aren't we having enough problems in the world with standard mines that don't move, to be thinking about making more deadly landmines?

Re:Awesome!!

[diamondmagic (877411)]

It's not about the money, it's about the time. Hoverboards and cancer cures are a long ways away (mostly waiting on other scientific breakthroughs like nanotech). We already have technology for mines and wireless networks, though. (Common sense, really)