Lasers Stop Snipers Before They Fire (Updated)

Cops and soldiers now have the ability to pinpoint incoming sniper fire. The military's way-out research arm wants to take that a step further, by finding and
"neutralizing" shooters before they ever pull their triggers.

If it pans out, Darpa's C-Sniper system "will operate day and night from a moving vehicle... Once detection is made, the C-Sniper system will provide the data and control to point and track the on-board weapon system on the selected target. The decision to engage with the target will be left to the operator."

Darpa doesn't say much about how researchers might pull off this
"detection and neutralization of enemy snipers." But the agency does note that "if the system utilizes laser technology then it must be eye safe for all personnel."

For years, military engineers have been working to build a similar system – using flashes of laser light to "illuminate potential hiding places... and detect retro-reflections from the sniper’s scope," a Rand Corporation report notes. At the Air Force Research Laboratory', this laser-based counter-sniper effort is called "BOSS," short for the Battlefield Optical Surveillance System.

[It] is a grouping of lasers, optics, sensors, and communications equipment mounted on a high-mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV). Initially envisioned as a mobile counter-sniper platform,
BOSS has evolved into a working concept of a covert surveillance/detection system with the ability to visibly (or invisibly) designate a battlefield threat. BOSS
contains[:] A forward looking infrared (FLIR) sees in the 8-12 micron range of the spectrum, detecting temperature differences between bodies that allow it to "see" hot vehicle components from the heat generated. An infrared camera/illuminator uses backscattered infrared (808 nm) illumination to light up an area of interest at distances up to 1 km. Optical augmentation (glint) from an individual's rifle scope/binoculars or even a person's retinas provides a means of detecting that individual. Variable focus on the illum-ination/camera can then determine, without alerting the suspect, whether the person is carrying weaponry or is moving suspiciously.
The infrared laser can also be used to covertly designate (spotlight) a person for night vision-capable forces. A visible laser, a doubled neodymium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) (green) laser, or an optional red laser can also be used to visibly designate a threatening individual. The threatening individual's reaction to visible illumination can help determine his intent;
if hostile, direct force can be used, and if non-hostile, firing lethal rounds can be averted. As used in the battlefield, neither laser will harm the human eye. Finally, a microwave relay allows the operator to transmit the FLIR and infrared camera video to a command post up to 10 miles away.

Earlier efforts, along similar lines, had to be stopped, after an international treaty banned the use of blinding lasers in 1996. Today, San Diego's Torrey Pines Logic Inc. has been working on its Mirage 1200 – a hand-held, binocular-like device that uses eye-safe laser pulses to find snipers' scopes. The company has a video of it in action:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=

But Darpa envision its C-Sniper system going far beyond either the Air Force's or Torrey Pines' projects. The agency wants to have its sniper-detector "integrated" with its existing gunshot-locator, the Crosshairs/Boomerang system. Here's how I described the device for the New York Times:

Boomerang uses a bundle of seven microphones, each facing a different direction, mounted on top of an 18-inch pole.
When a bullet flies by, creating a shock wave, each microphone picks up the sound at a slightly different time. Those tiny differences allow the system to calculate where the shooter is. (Boomerang also listens for the blast from the gun's muzzle, which reaches the system just after the bullet's faster-than-sound flight.) Inside the Humvee, a recorded voice buzzes through a dashboard speaker, announcing the shooter's position – ''Shot 10 o'clock! Shot 10 o'clock!'' – and an analog clocklike display indicates the direction. Other information, like the shooter's G.P.S. coordinates, range and elevation, are also provided. ''We're now accurate way beyond 500 meters,'' says Dave
Schmitt, Boomerang's program manager at BBN Technologies in Cambridge,
Mass.

Integrating a series of shot-listening mics with a system that can take snipers out before they fire will be a major challenge. It gets started next Thursday, when Darpa holds a secret meeting to kick the program off.

According to iCasulaties.org, 45
coalition troops have been killed by sniper fire since the beginning of the Iraq war. Combined with the agency's effort to build a
next-generation sniper scope for American shooters, the C-Sniper represents a big, new push by the Pentagon's farthest-thinking researchers to slow down that casualty count.

(High five: Matt, in the comments, for jogging my memory – kicking my butt.)