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May 22nd, 2007

Heading for the hills? Planning on taking a rifle with you?

With the system described below, and currently available armed/unmanned drone technology, a lethal and autonomous response to trespassers/intruders/enemy combatants/etc. is easily possible. Right now.

Autonomous acquisition and engagement of human targets is old news. See Israel’s robotic gun turrets. Picking out individuals for termination from a crowd will take a few years (requires human middleware for now), but to have a robot autonomously kill people in a specified area is easily doable now.

Drones could orbit a huge area, looking for heat signatures on their own, or waiting to respond to a target picked up by one of these ferrous metal detecting ground sensors. If the operators wish, the weapon system could acquire and terminate the target autonomously, keep it under surveillance or have a human pull the trigger. The point is to automate the lockdown.

The military has used ground sensors for decades. I don’t follow the specifics, but I’d be surprised if they haven’t used something like this for a long, long time. I’m mentioning this because the technology is now using ubiquitous, civilian grade gear. Off the shelf. Internet based. Inexpensive. Coming to a wilderness retreat near you.

Ahhh, maybe the Blackwater boys will run some of these hunter killer networks. One merc, a few drones and a BIG area.

Via: MIT Technology Review:

The closest that park officials often get to catching poachers is stumbling across carcasses days or weeks after the culprits have fled the scene. Now a new surveillance system may help locate, track, and intercept poachers before they strike.

The system consists of a network of foot-long metal detectors similar to those used in airports. When moving metal objects such as a machete or a rifle trip the sensor, it sends a radio signal to a wireless Internet gateway camouflaged in the tree canopy as far as a kilometer away. This signal is transmitted via satellite to the Internet, where the incident is logged and messages revealing the poachers’ position and direction are sent instantly to park headquarters, where patrols can then be dispatched.

“[This system] is a force multiplier,” says Steve Gulick, an electrical engineer and director of Wildland Security, a Brooklyn-based organization that develops antipoaching technology. “It could potentially make the patrols more efficient. They would know where to go and could mount a real-time response.”