Krell
November 8th, 2005, 02:40 PM
The US army has successfully tested a radar tag that could allow aircraft to easily identify their own ground vehicles, helping to prevent "friendly fire" incidents.
The Athena Radar-Responsive Tag is about the size of a cigarette packet, and can be attached to tanks, trucks and other ground vehicles. When the radar from an airplane hits it, the device transmits back its own radar signal that identifies it as a friendly vehicle.
The device is similar in principal to the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems that already allow military ships and aircraft to identify one another. But to be useful for ground vehicles, the tags have to be small and affordable.
Rick Ormesher, the project lead for tag development at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, says it is similar to an RFID tag, in that it waits for a signal and then responds.
When a tag detects a radar pulse, it adds data to it and then sends it back, he explains. "That added data is what allows the radar to identify the tag as a friend." When the aircraft radar receives the signal, it adds an icon to the pilot's display which identifies the object as a friendly vehicle.
Encryption codes
Ormesher said the tag would not identify itself to enemy radar. Although he would not provide details, it seems likely that the device uses encryption in the same way other IFF systems do – waiting for an encrypted signal from a friendly radar, and then identifying itself using its own encrypted signal. Without the codes, an enemy cannot impersonate an aircraft device or receive a signal from a tag.
The goal is to bring the cost of each tags to below $2000, Ormesher says, which will make them affordable enough to put on every ground vehicle. Eventually, they might be cheap enough to place on individual soldiers.
The tags were tested during Exercise Urgent Quest at the Salisbury Plains Training Area in the UK as part of a NATO exercise to test a number of new identification technologies. A final report on the tests is due in March 2006.
Sandia is developing the tags with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San Diego and Sierra Monolithics of Redondo Beach, California, both in the US.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/dn8242.html
Other obvious uses . . c'mon people . . name some.
.
The Athena Radar-Responsive Tag is about the size of a cigarette packet, and can be attached to tanks, trucks and other ground vehicles. When the radar from an airplane hits it, the device transmits back its own radar signal that identifies it as a friendly vehicle.
The device is similar in principal to the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems that already allow military ships and aircraft to identify one another. But to be useful for ground vehicles, the tags have to be small and affordable.
Rick Ormesher, the project lead for tag development at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, says it is similar to an RFID tag, in that it waits for a signal and then responds.
When a tag detects a radar pulse, it adds data to it and then sends it back, he explains. "That added data is what allows the radar to identify the tag as a friend." When the aircraft radar receives the signal, it adds an icon to the pilot's display which identifies the object as a friendly vehicle.
Encryption codes
Ormesher said the tag would not identify itself to enemy radar. Although he would not provide details, it seems likely that the device uses encryption in the same way other IFF systems do – waiting for an encrypted signal from a friendly radar, and then identifying itself using its own encrypted signal. Without the codes, an enemy cannot impersonate an aircraft device or receive a signal from a tag.
The goal is to bring the cost of each tags to below $2000, Ormesher says, which will make them affordable enough to put on every ground vehicle. Eventually, they might be cheap enough to place on individual soldiers.
The tags were tested during Exercise Urgent Quest at the Salisbury Plains Training Area in the UK as part of a NATO exercise to test a number of new identification technologies. A final report on the tests is due in March 2006.
Sandia is developing the tags with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San Diego and Sierra Monolithics of Redondo Beach, California, both in the US.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/dn8242.html
Other obvious uses . . c'mon people . . name some.
.