New Drones Enlisted as Bomb-Fighters

The U.S. military has tried everything to stop roadside bombs, from radio frequency jammers to hulking trucks to blimps to lightning guns. Now, the Pentagon is getting set to deploy out a new crew of bomb-fighters: robotic aircraft with specialized sensors, designed to spot the deadly weapons and the militants who are planting them.
Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, killed 161 coalition troops in Afghanistan last year, and wounded another 722. That's more than double 2007's casualties. So the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) is developing four drones to help discover who's behind the explosive traps. All four are supposed to be "fielded or tested this year," according to Inside Defense.

The agency has invested in robo-planes before. But these latest efforts seem to be concentrated on smaller, lower-flying drones that can closely track the action on the ground.

The "Sentinel Hawk" is a modified Silver Fox drone, equipped with infrared sensors and "built to keep tabs on a specific road or path," Defense News explains. A single operator will be able to command teams of the eight-foot long aircraft, as they patrol the roadways for bombs.

The "Yellow Jacket" robo-copter gives warzone convoys an unmanned eye-in-the-sky. For up to eight hours, the drone will follow around -- and keep watch on -- a vehicle, beaming what it sees down to the ground.

Then there's "VADER, "short for "Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar." It's a $45 million project to equip a drone with a specialized Synthetic Aperture Radar. These sensors are better at tracking moving targets -- and changing scenery -- than standard cameras. And they work in all kinds of weather. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman recently finished up the first test flight of the new sensor, for the Pentgon's way-out research agency, Darpa.

Another Synthetic Aperture Radar program is "Copperhead," which puts a minituarized version of the sensor on a 17-foot Tiger Shark drone. (Usually, those kind of sensors are only found on much bigger planes; JIEDDO has spent $23 million to squeeze the radar on.) The idea is to use the radar to "detec[t] soil disturbances, which cue analysts to look for specialized threat signatures," a recent JIEDDO presentation explains. (Well, sorta.) An "operational assessment" is slated to begin next month.

Finally, there's the hush-hush "Green Dart" sensor, installed on Hunter drones. The armed forces won't say the first thing about the $22 million, classified effort. But it's clear that the program, begun last year, is expanding. A new contract for "on-site technical, engineering, logistics, training, and operational support" in Iraq and Afghanistan is set to be handed out soon.
Wired