The palm-sized device designed by Qinetiq, the British defence firm that was once the government research laboratories, is pinned to the uniform and uses acoustic technology to calculate the exact position of the rifle fire.
Then a electronic voice passes on the “bearing and range” to the soldier allowing him to jump to safety and return fire.
The machine has already been purchased by the Americans for deployment in the New Year and the British are looking at a vehicle mounted version.
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The device, which costs around £2,500, works by isolating the crack of the sniper rifle thanks to four microphones, a GPS system and a powerful microprocessor.
It takes less than a tenth of a second and provides the results in audio and visual formats. It can even send a grid reference via radio to supporting artillery and aircraft.
The system, which weighs less than 6oz, is so sensitive it can tell the difference between outgoing friendly fire and incoming enemy fire and can distinguish a sniper even in a gun battle.
It also works when the soldier is travelling at up to 50 mph on a vehicle.
The device has already been road tested in Iraq and Afghanistan to claims of great success.
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
That’s really innovative. They currently have a vehicle mounted version in theater, but they are not very widespread. This would be very helpful for gunners and infantry doing patrols. The real question, though, is can it recognize where and RPG came from? I know we had that problem in the first couple of months over there. I hope I get a chance to see these on my next tour.
-John
Based strictly on how I would do it if I were building a microphone based device I think the answer is no. It will not work on subsonic projectiles of any type.
From what I understand, they’re trying to create a “mini-CIWS” to deal with RPGs.