How Advances In Technology Are Keeping Our Soldiers Safe

Lockheed Martin's HULC exoskeleton provides an energy boost for troops and helps prevent injuries during a battle. HULC

Ten Technological Advances Designed To Keep Our Soldiers Safer -- FOX News

When you send young men and women to war, you owe it to them and their loved ones to keep them as safe as humanly possible. Or, in the 21st century, beyond-humanly possible. Here's a look at ten new technologies the military is exploring to keep U.S. troops safer, including robot drones, exoskeletons … and even chemical injections that deliver extra energy to soldiers.

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My Comment: This blog has covered dozens (if not hundreds) of technological advances in the military. But the ten that FOX news has listed in the above post are cool and deserve special recognition.

Super-Small Microphone Detects Motion Of Air Particles To Pinpoint Gunfire In Battle

The Microflown via Dvice

From Popular Science:

Wait, don't call it a microphone -- it's an acoustic vector sensor.

Between the yelling of sergeants, the rumble of jet engines, and the deafening pop of gunfire, a soldier's sense of hearing rapidly deteriorates in the heat of battle. Luckily, the Dutch company Microflown has designed a special microphone that can do a soldier's listening for him. By measuring the mechanical movement of individual air particles, as opposed to sound waves as a whole, the device can not only pinpoint the origin of sniper fire or approaching aircraft, but detail their make and model, as well.

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My Comment: This is one way to pinpoint the snipers .... before they pinpoint you.

Army To Launch Technology Blog

From Military.com:

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. - The Army is launching a new blog to help Soldiers and the public discover a little-known side of the Army: the research, development, engineering, testing and evaluation that goes into the technologies that make Soldiers safer and more effective.

The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command will launch Army Technology Live Nov. 2. It will join the growing family of Army blogs hosted by the Department of Defense's DODLive blog hosting service. The Web address will be http://armytechnology.armylive.dodlive.mil/.

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My Comment: I guess DARPA is not the only game in town.

Satellite Images Used To Create Better Camouflage

Images gathered from cameras on drones and satellites are used to make a mesh that serves as camouflage for military vehicles. The product, Photo-Veil is from Military Wraps.

From Live Science:

The art of concealing troops and their vehicles has come a long way from the first "camouflage" division formed in France in 1915. The French army called in artists to help prepare colors and designs; the Americans later used the same idea, calling on artists like Grant Wood, the painter of the "American Gothic."

Today, Photo-Veil from Military Wraps is a mesh material that uses images gathered from cameras on drones and satellites to camouflage military vehicles. The lightweight, customizable, foldable, portable and waterproof mesh material is also able to mask thermal and infrared output, making it ideal for blinds and ghillie suits. (At least until your invisibility cloak is ready.)

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Nanotechnology Goes To War

Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of microcogs forming a microgear mechanism. Photograph: David Parker/Science Photo Library

From The Guardian:

Wouldn't it be handy if everything we needed to build the next generation of portable devices and robots were available on a microchip? You could just plug in a navigation system, a radar sensor, cryogenic cooling system, or even a miniature power unit. For laboratory applications, there would be micro versions of everything from mass spectrometers to magnetic sensors. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the Pentagon's extreme science wing, aims to provide all this, and more, in handy "matchbook size" electronic packages.

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My Comment: A good review of this emerging field. I expect more articles on this topic to be published in the near future.

Update: Battlechips: Darpa's Next-Gen Micromachines -- The Danger Room