New Technologies Seek to Make IEDs ObsoleteJune 18, 2010

 

A new crop of technologies are close to blunting the power of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which remain the No. 1 killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

One technology developed by the Pentagon uses a high-tech beam to detonate hidden IEDs, according to an article in USA Today. The Pentagon has released few details about the weapon except to say that it bypasses the IED's triggering mechanism and explodes the bomb.

The USA Today article noted, however, that some in the military think the technology could cause civilian casualties because once the weapon is engaged, it could explode bombs in various locations within range—even those being transported or built by insurgents.

"You can imagine the challenges of pre-detonating an explosive in a road," Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of a task force overseeing ways to counter IEDs, told USA Today. "You have to worry about collateral damage."

Others see it as an effective offensive weapon.

"This is an offensive capability that will change the face of this war," Marine Gen. James Mattis, head of the U.S. Joint Forces Command that looks to transform military capabilities, told USA Today. "A lot more innocent people are going to die if we don't do it," he said.

Mattis even suggests that the technology be placed in an aircraft that sweeps a large area clean of IEDs by detonating them, helping to keep advancing troops safe. The technology, however, has not been developed to accomplish this feat. What's more, such a development could simply be another step in a leap-frog arms race, offering no guarantee that insurgents will not find a countermeasure.

Another technology to combat IEDs is at an earlier stage of development but shows great potential. Scientists in the United Kingdom say they have come up with a laser technology that can sniff out IEDs, according to the UK-based publication Military Suppliers & News. Scientists at St. Andrews University conducted the research on the laser and details appear in the Advanced Functional Materials publication.

Doctor Graham Turnbull, one of the study's authors, explained that the laser can detect the vapor signatures produced by IEDs. "Floating above a landmine in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's a very weak, dilute cloud of vapors of explosive molecules that the bomb is made from," he said. "A small number of these TNT-like molecules come into contact with a plastic film that the laser is [made] from, interacts with the light-emitting molecules in the laser and switches off the light emission."

A potential use of the laser could be integrating the technology in robotic devices that travel ahead of troops, sniffing out IEDs. "On a dusty road in Afghanistan there are relatively few things that might give you a false positive and it certainly could have potential in that area," noted Turnbull. "Essentially it's making an artificial nose for a robot dog."