[hpsdr] [OT] iRobot + xBox controller finding Snipers in Iraq

[KE5EUP]

Here is the link form Popular Science Magazine Web Site.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/b0c7eda4e7110110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Here is a [snip] from the site:

 The RedOwl is a robotic head that looks more like a PowerPoint
projector than a sharpshooter’s worst enemy. But don’t let its Circuit
City appearance fool you: Controlled by a laptop-wielding soldier, the
RedOwl’s superior senses can read a nametag from across a football field
and identify the make and model of a rifle fired a mile away simply by
analyzing the sound of the distant blast. And soon it could be putting
its powers to use in Iraq.

RedOwl’s developer, Glenn Thoren, now a director at Insight Technology
in Londonderry, New Hampshire, says several prototypes have finished an
intensive 10-week field test at Fort Benning in Georgia. Given the
defense department’s budget approval early this year, he hopes the
$150,000 sniper-finders will be in Iraq by this spring.

The robot’s mechanical ears were originally designed to improve hearing
aides. But Thoren, then with Boston University’s Photonics Center, which
heads the RedOwl project, thought up a new application after learning of
a spike in sniper activity surrounding Iraqi hotspots like Abu Ghraib
prison. He combined the original listening system—which processes sound
received by four microphones to determine the direction and elevation of
a noise—with a suite of sensors, spotlights and a laser rangefinder.
When the RedOwl hears gunfire, it swivels its head toward the source of
the noise. A thermal imager can pick out the sniper while an infrared
spotlight illuminates him for night-vision-equipped troops.

Attached to a PackBot, a miniature robot tank built by iRobot in
Burlington, Massachusetts, and steered by a modified Xbox videogame
controller, the RedOwl can also enter dangerous buildings in advance of
soldiers. “We’re hoping to put the robot in situations where it would be
less safe for a soldier,” Thoren says.