From this morning’s headlines at Military.com…
New Clothing Item IDs Friendlies
When Taliban forces attacked a police checkpoint in central Afghanistan under dark of night in late 2006, special-operations Master Sgt. Andrew Martin called in air support and then slapped a high-tech cloth-like device on his helmet for protection.
Fresh from labs at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the device transmitted light from a powerful light-emitting diode, or LED, that pulsed through a fiber optic bundle, giving off infrared signals visible to pilots wearing night-vision goggles.
“The pilots were able to very quickly pick it up,” recalled Martin, who has since retired from the Air Force. “What didn’t happen was additional questions from the pilots asking me my location.”
The new technology — called Target Recognition Operator Notification system — was designed to easily identify friendly forces and avoid casualties from friendly fire.
Martin liked the equipment so much he used it on about 35 missions over six months. He said it is better than strobe lights, which can be mistaken for machine-gun fire, or reflective tape, which is difficult to see from the air.
“U.S. forces have been dogged by the difficulty of finding each other in the fog of battle,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. “What this new innovation allows is easy identification of friendly forces without helping the enemy do the same thing.“
Read more on the TRON system at Military.com.
I have plenty of that IR glint tape — and it’s stitched all over my jackets and gear — but I gotta tell you, I’d rather have something a lot bigger like this.
(PHOTO: AP)
– Christian
...
This is really cool… BUT… from actual manufacturing and how it works, I’m surprised it even costs $100 a unit. You can get all of the electronic parts at Radio Shack from the sound of it depending on how bright the LED is.
And if it’s night vision, then wouldn’t the enemy just have to turn on similar type of gear to evade air assault?
It does sound better than strobes, and glint tape, but it also sounds like it’s easily reproduced with anyone that understands a little bit of electronics which isn’t a good thing.
The same could be said for any visual signal. However, it’s nice to see a relatively simple device help a serious problem.
What happened to techniques using ***D signuatures?
>I’m surprised it even costs $100 a unit.
It may have been a prototype. If the full production model costs the same, I’m going to slam the idiots who made this for not using COTS.
>You can get all of the electronic parts at Radio Shack from the sound of it depending on how
>bright the LED is.
Don’t tell me that’s “Made in China”. What kind of idiot would rely supplies from a communist country trying to destroy your own?
I wonder if they could hook the device up to a keypad or mic, in order to send flash messages (similar to morse code). Or maybe create a receiving device (sim. to a viewfinder) to automatically decode the messages, or authenticate the flash pattern, color, spectrum, or intensity… babble, babble, babble… just a thought.
It probably won’t be long until unit gets enough of these to start spelling out words or drawing pictures on the ground for pilots above.
Yes, the enemy could also see the signals — and either mimic them or use them for targeting — if it knew what to look for. That is why one constantly changes call signs, signals, passwords, codes, etc.
Nice for Allied forces but how about enemy forces.
Must have Need for to deter Friendly Fire cases.
Uh Darkmoon,
I don’t know where you shop, but my local Radio Shack doesn’t stock IR LEDs with fiber optic bundles.
William,
Doesn’t seem like we are fighting in the Fulda Gap at the moment, seems like there is little chance of these little buggers (which are directional BTW, hence the Fiber Optic component) being picked up by Taliban types, regardless of who’s NVGs they may have picked up.