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Cougar20-H Robot Hears Your Breathing
The Tialinx Cougar20-H surveillance robot uses an ultra-wideband radio frequency sensor array to focus on biorhythmic patterns - like breathing - to find humans in hiding.
(Tialinx Cougar20-h surveillance robot)
Operated from a laptop that can be more than 300 feet away, the robot can scan through reinforced concrete by detecting reflected radio waves. It can find people who are moving or even keeping still, so the operator can see them in real time."Cougar20-H can also be remotely programmed at multiple way points to scan the desired premise in a multistory building and provide its layout," TiaLinx founder Fred Mohamadi said in a release. The robot also has multiple onboard cameras for day or night patrols.
This device reminds me of the "life detector" from Frank Herbert's 1958 story Cease Fire:
The antennae of the Life Detector atop the OP swept back and forth in a rhythmic halfcircle like so many frozen sticks brittle with rime ice...One operator - drugged to shivering wakefulness - stood watch in the OP. The space around him was barely six feet in diameter, crammed with equipment, gridded screens glowing a pale green with spots that indicated living flesh: a covey of ptermigan, a possible Artic fox...
(Read more about Frank Herbert's life detector)
Army strategists should take note: Herbert also imagined that, if there was a life detector, there might also be a life detector shield.
This kind of technology might also make it possible to implement devices like Philip K. Dick's homotropic news vending machine, a device that is able to detect and follow people around.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/8/2011)
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