blindness-causing, eyeball-finding: anti-sniper

[fruzzetti]

I think we should develop a very long-range, very accurate device with a tiny little head that can quickly pan an area and detect lenses, eyeballs etc at great range and temporarily or permanently blind them, continuously, until they look away and which can immediately re-train on the same eyes within milliseconds after they're turned back that way? A human operator could be trained to verify that it is indeed seeing lenses or helping it quantify its accuracy in real-time from another country or aircraft or right next to it.

I originally thought of it as an anti-ticket device: the subversive thinker in me was wondering if it might be possible to make it impossible for police or police vehicles to detect or identify the car and impossible for anyone to approach it. I think it fits much better in protecting soldiers from sniper fire and I bet it would fetch a price with any government.

Make a small version capable of up to 8 eyes and a large version on a hand-truck capable of essentially infinite eyes that runs on deisel. The small head means you can set it up protected and almost invisible to the attacker. Using a lens shaped like y=(x-r)^2 rotated about y in [-r, r] (OK analogy: bell of a trumpet), you could cover 360 degrees. Hell, put it on a mini tank.

~ dan ~

I 100% expect this has already been commercialized. However, so what? There's more than one patent pending way to skin a cat.

[Osgeld]

long-range
very accurate
tiny
quickly
and hit a constantly moving target about an inch wide

cake, anything else? cause you forgot cheap

[fruzzetti]

LOL I did forget cheap. But I bet such a device made for two pair of eyes could be pretty cheaply made and handled by an MCU, especially if it's scrapped together.

[UAirLtd]

Sounds great, find me that $1 billion government grant and let's do it!

[ChalkBored]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_o ... er_Weapons

Seems relevant.

[Quin]

The problem I see is detecting the eye or lens at any kind of range. That's where I would start at, since it seems like it would be the tough part.

So, MCU hooked up to a camera device of some sort. With no zoom, my 10MP camera has 3880 pixel width images, and about 60 degrees of view. (let's pretend this is evenly distributed for simpler math, and that there is no interpolation) For an eyeball to be easy to see, let's say it needs to be at least 15 pixels wide. That works out to almost an arc minute, so let's just call it that. The eye is about an inch, so Wolfram Alpha tells me that it's max distance would be 87 meters. Using a cheaper camera, you could aim for face detection and then pick the eyes out and swing the laser across a larger area to dazzle the target. Or you could use a zoom lens and aim for a certain narrower area.

But detecting a good anti-glare anti-reflective lens would be a whole other problem.

I think a billion in grants is too small. To cover any area, you'd need a good high res, larger format, sensor, a long focus lens, lots of torque to move sensor and lens combo, and a beefy CPU behind it if you want a chance of detecting the lens of a sniper weapon. And you'll need multiple devices, because the snipers would just shoot the camera first.

[k-ww]

put a piece of plate glass in front of you at an angle so it dosn't reflect back to the detector. - if you are in dimmer light than outside, you are invisable to the unit. To compleate the spoof, put a store manikin head with marbles for eyes [to reflect] next to you. what will this gizmo try to 'blind'?

[flink]

This sort of already exists, though not for eyeballs. A number of companies have researched and developed optics detecting laser systems since the late '90s. The systems can detect optics and distinguish between eye wear, binoculars, and optics used in telescopic sights.

Google anti-sniper laser for plenty of hits.