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thedrifter
11-22-04, 06:40 AM
11-16-2004

Guest Column: The IED Solution



By Nathaniel R. Helms



ROLLA, MO – Two Missouri professors seeking ways to track civilian automobiles for General Motors have discovered a way to detect and conceivably even detonate so-called Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the bombs that are frequently killing and maiming coalition troops in Iraq.



As of late last year, 40 to 60 percent of all attacks on logistical convoys began with an IED detonation, Pentagon officials report. Some of these attacks included direct fire attacks immediately following the detonation of the device. However, more and more IEDs are now being used in furtive standoff and stand-alone attacks.



Professors Todd Hubing and Daryl Beetner, researchers at the University of Missouri – Rolla (UMR), a high respected engineering school close to Fort Leonard Wood, say they have developed a way to detect electronic emissions emitted from IED transmitters and detonators before the insurgents can set them off.



“It is all about detecting a present acoustic cue,” Hubing said.



Simply stated, the scientists have figured out a way to eavesdrop on the ether to detect ambient electronic noise floating around when the mad bombers set up their devices in preparation of setting off an ambush. Both the transmitter the insurgents need to send out a radio signal ordering the detonator to explode and the detonator itself, emit these radio signals.



The trick is isolating the unique signals much the same way sonar operators on submarines filter out biologic and machinery noises until they can identify the sounds of the target they are looking for. That radio signal sounds very much like the rapid electronic “beep-beep-beep” emitted by Soviet-era SA-2 acquisition radar, a familiar sound for those military pilots unfortunate enough to have experienced it.



The two scientists said the idea came to them while they were watching a training film about improvised explosive devices at the combat engineer school based at Leonard Wood. “We went down there to talk about identifying automobiles,” Hubing said. “We found out they were really interested in IEDs.”



It has turned out to have been a lucky day for the Army. Beetner and Hubing work in the UMR Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory where scientists explore how to track the sources of unintentional noise in electronic systems to eliminate radio frequency emissions that comprise the trash noises in the ether.

“It would be relatively easy to override these radio receivers if we can recognize them,” Hubing told me last week. “When we identify the receiver, it is possible to prevent an IED from ever receiving the initiation signal.”

Hubing said operators using the same equipment could then detonate the IED under a controlled situation where it would not cause any casualties.

The technology to create the device already exists. The laboratory where the two scientists do their research possessed enough equipment to make a working theoretical model of the IED detector and present their finding to the Pentagon, Hubing said. Beetner, the other half of the team and the fiscal wizard in the equation, said he thinks it will take about $750,000 and a year of focused attention to field a working prototype.

Hubing concurs, adding that there are a lot of technical hurdles that have to be addressed before proven IED detectors finds their way onto the dashboards of Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We already have something,” Hubing noted, “but we have to figure out how big, how rugged, and how we are going to make them before we get one in the field.”

The only thing now standing in the way of successful testing, design refinement and accelerated production of the IED detector is the Pentagon’s infamous acquisition system. The scientists say that before mass production can happen, the entire program must first be studied, considered, analyzed, prioritized and paid for.

“We are already writing papers seeking support. It doesn’t cost too much to write papers,” Hubing said.

Before any practical work starts the Pentagon must issue a Broad Agency Announcement (or BBA), before one of its myriad agencies will issue a call for the device and seek white papers explaining the theoretical concept and examples of a practical design. Once that has been done then somebody (Hubing does not know whom that might be) will decide when it is time to actually make one and see whether it really works.

This is incredibly good news for our troops who are suffering from IEDs and ambushes in the nasty streets of Iraq. It would be much better news if the Pentagon’s acquisition leadership were to slash through the paperwork and give this badly needed capability the emergency wartime priority it so clearly deserves.

Every day this concept is delayed from full production and deployment is another day that more American GIs and Marines may be injured or killed by more IEDs in the hands of terrorists and insurgents.



Guest Contributor Nathaniel R. “Nat” Helms is a Vietnam veteran, former police officer and war correspondent living in Missouri. He is the author of two books, Numba One – Numba Ten and Journey Into Madness: A Hitchhiker’s Account of the Bosnian Civil War, both available at www.ebooks-online.com. He can be reached at natshouse1@charter.net. Send Feedback responses to* dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=690&rnd=300.6172994113704


Ellie

snipowsky
11-22-04, 07:34 AM
Awesome article. I really hope something like this can happen. This would be great for troop morale. I just pray to God our Government doesn't delay in producing something like this for our troops. They need and should have every kind of technological advantage and equipment advantage on the modern day battlefield.

Walter
11-22-04, 03:22 PM
I agree that this equipment is much needed and should become a priority in DC. Each day it's delayed means more casualities...we have to make some noise about this issue.



Semper fi.