DaJudge
February 21st, 2008, 11:19 AM
New Clothing Item IDs Friendlies
Associated Press | February 20, 2008
http://images.military.com/pics/Buzz_TRON.jpg
DAYTON, Ohio - 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."
Brian Hunt, an engineer with the Air Force Research Lab, said he and his
team were approached in 2004 and asked to develop such a system.
Working with Lumitex Inc. of Strongsville, the effort was part of a rapid-
reaction program where researchers were given up to $100,000 and one
year to come up with a product.
"A lot of different units saw the need for something like this, to be able to
clearly determine friend or foe," Hunt said.
The group produced 108 prototypes in six months. Each unit costs about
$100.
Built in to the nylon-like cloth is a circuit board and a battery pack. The
woven nature of the cloth emits light in a controlled way, creating a uniform
surface.
The system can run 200 hours on two double-A batteries and weighs less
than three ounces. It can be worn on tactical vests, around an arm or
mounted to a helmet.
"You can put it anywhere," Hunt said. "It's got Velcro on the back. It sticks
to everything."
The circuitry also allows the system to flash at different speeds. That
enables pilots to identify different groups of friendly forces and see which
group is under attack, which group is trying to circle the enemy, and who
the reinforcements are, among other things.
Mike Sedillo, support contractor at the research lab, said he would like to
see the system in the hands of all U.S. forces in the battlefield and become
standard equipment in air-crew survival kits.
Sedillo said researchers are working to upgrade the system so it will
transmit light in other parts of the spectrum, making it more difficult for
enemy forces to detect with conventional night vision technology.
"Friendly fire incidents in general are declining, but in counterinsurgency or
counter-terror warfare it's much harder to sort out our people from the
other side because there are no front lines," Thompson said. "This invention
is well-suited to a world in which all the old features of battlefield like
secure areas and front lines are missing."
Associated Press | February 20, 2008
http://images.military.com/pics/Buzz_TRON.jpg
DAYTON, Ohio - 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."
Brian Hunt, an engineer with the Air Force Research Lab, said he and his
team were approached in 2004 and asked to develop such a system.
Working with Lumitex Inc. of Strongsville, the effort was part of a rapid-
reaction program where researchers were given up to $100,000 and one
year to come up with a product.
"A lot of different units saw the need for something like this, to be able to
clearly determine friend or foe," Hunt said.
The group produced 108 prototypes in six months. Each unit costs about
$100.
Built in to the nylon-like cloth is a circuit board and a battery pack. The
woven nature of the cloth emits light in a controlled way, creating a uniform
surface.
The system can run 200 hours on two double-A batteries and weighs less
than three ounces. It can be worn on tactical vests, around an arm or
mounted to a helmet.
"You can put it anywhere," Hunt said. "It's got Velcro on the back. It sticks
to everything."
The circuitry also allows the system to flash at different speeds. That
enables pilots to identify different groups of friendly forces and see which
group is under attack, which group is trying to circle the enemy, and who
the reinforcements are, among other things.
Mike Sedillo, support contractor at the research lab, said he would like to
see the system in the hands of all U.S. forces in the battlefield and become
standard equipment in air-crew survival kits.
Sedillo said researchers are working to upgrade the system so it will
transmit light in other parts of the spectrum, making it more difficult for
enemy forces to detect with conventional night vision technology.
"Friendly fire incidents in general are declining, but in counterinsurgency or
counter-terror warfare it's much harder to sort out our people from the
other side because there are no front lines," Thompson said. "This invention
is well-suited to a world in which all the old features of battlefield like
secure areas and front lines are missing."