Several of my professors at the Naval Postgraduate School have been involved in an intellectual process of battling the improvised explosive device threat in Iraq, and I’ve followed their work with interest. Fascinating too, to see their familiar work reflected in the article quoted below (link behind a subscription wall at the Aerospace Daily and Defense Report):
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has narrowed the focus of its counter-IED work to technologies that stop the devices before they are even placed in the ground, according to Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. William Landay.
Last year ONR embarked on a broad effort to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which remain the number one cause of U.S. casualties overseas. Navy officials likened the effort to the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb (DAILY, July 29, 2005).
Since then, the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), under the leadership of retired Army Gen. Montgomery Meigs, has taken the lead role in coordinating research by the services to detect and defeat emplaced IEDs.
However, “it’s a lot easier to defeat the bomb if it never gets put into the ground,” Landay told The DAILY. With JIEDDO’s concurrence, “that’s really where we’ve focused our effort more,” he said. At the same time, ONR still is supporting JIEDDO-funded research on IED detection and neutralization, Landay said.
The U.S. Navy plans to spend $56.3 million of its $1.6 billion science and technology (S&T) budget in fiscal 2007 on counter-IED research. What ONR is now calling its “mini Manhattan project” will account for about $30 million to $40 million of that total, according to Landay.
Though reluctant to discuss details of the types of technology that could help prevent IEDs from being deployed in the first place, Landay said they range from chemical detection schemes to analyzing how people form social groups to studying modifications in traffic flow.
Aiding the research is the “painful laboratory” of current operations in Iraq, where most IEDs still are only being detected after they detonate. “Sometimes you can’t stop it, but given that it happened, that at least allows you to go back and say, ‘OK, we know on this date something happened, and so there’s data that we can also collect,’” Landay said
I’ll bet an “Anti-Katusha” system would fetch a pretty penny today!!
That’s odd… I thought the PG school was in Monterey, not in Iraq.
My friends with orders to PG are gonna be bummed.. They thought they were going to leave the 5th fleet AOR for sunny CA. Guess not!
We’ve established a branch of NPGS in Iraq? And they say we aren’t making progress…
Nose
Spfft! Typos always rouse the rabble.
Northrup-Grumman apparently does have an anti-Katyusha system that was demo’d at White Sands recently.
The problems is that it’s not really a weapon yet. It might have been the THEL, I’m not sure.
It’s little, economic and even no brainer things like this, (see link), that put the rubber on the road against the IED threat. Theory and future science fair projects may pan out but the washout rate is over 90&…
Bottom line- Everything that flies does ISR for the JTAC and the boys on the ground.
B2
http://adserver1.harvestadsdepot.com/jaxairnews/ss/049314/
Belay me last…Correction:
That’s 90%
Plus here is the whole link:
http://adserver1.harvestadsdepot.com/jaxairnews/ss/049314/
WTF…O? Link still didn’t take!
Check page 7 of 28 on the link.
That is if you are as persistent as me…
B2
Lex, this must be more complicated than I think it is.At the risk of exposing my stupidity:
Assumption:IED is detonated by an RF signal.
Solution:Absorb RF signals/Jam RF signals/Broadcast RF signals to detonate devices at will.
I’m not an electromagnetic guy and do not presume to know or understand what my professors have made a life time study of, so if I’ve over simplified the problem with my assumption, help me out.
Phil,
IED’s detonated by many means: cell phone, RF, and a couple of other more “Manual” means. My guess is even the RF has to have some kind of code (like you craftsman garage door opener with somethng like 999K combinations…
I know a guy who works on DARPA projects. He is scary smart and they have teams of guys like him working on this stuff. I’m sure it’s not an easy nut to crack.
Nose