High-tech weapons set to change future of struggle – from death rays to invisibility cloaks | Science | News

Top secret CIA technology succesful of pinpointing an particular person’s heartbeat was reportedly deployed to rescue a USAF soldier in Iran — but that is merely scratching the floor when it comes to science-fiction-style weaponry.

Ghost Murmur reportedly harnesses long-range quantum magnetometry to detect the distinctive signature of a human heartbeat, cross-referencing the information with artificial intelligence software program to distinguish the signal from background noise.

Yet it is far from the only cutting-edge navy technology that seems to have been lifted straight from the pages of a science fiction novel. Here, we look at some of the most extraordinary futuristic capabilities obtainable to the US armed forces, just days after America’s new ultra-stealthy fight drone was unveiled.

Combat exoskeletons

Familiar from blockbusters such as Iron Man and Aliens, exoskeletons could soon become battlefield actuality. Troops from the US Army’s 1-78 Field Artillery Battalion coaching unit at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, efficiently accomplished a three-day “proof of concept” analysis of the newest technology of “exoskeleton suits.”

This types half of an ongoing collection of experiments stretching back as far as 1960, when the Pentagon was exploring a “power-operated mechanical suit or skeleton that would transform the ordinary GI into a Superman”. In those distant Cold War days, navy chiefs envisioned a soldier dressed in “a special suit which will have its own engine, enabling him to run faster, stop quicker, and lift bigger loads than ordinary mortals”.

The forecast from Army Research & Development magazine instructed that the wearer of the US Army’s proposed fight armour “Will be immune to germ warfare, poison gas, and the heat and radiation from nuclear blasts”.

While the notion of powered armour of the kind featured in movies such as Starship Troopers and Avatar is seemingly still some distance away, a wearable “fork lift,” akin to the energy loader Ripley operated in the closing scenes of James Cameron’s 1986 Alien sequel may become actuality within the next few years.

Panasonic subsidiary Activelink has been developing a powered exoskeleton that could help navy personnel in confined environments – such as submarines or plane carriers – to manoeuvre heavy missiles or torpedoes effortlessly.

Invisibility cloaks

The notion of stealth has been a elementary part of warfare for centuries, whether we’re discussing the introduction of khaki uniforms in the mid-1800s to counter the development of exact sniper rifles, or the US air drive’s ultra-stealthy B-21 Raider, anticipated to rule the skies in the 2030s.

But the next technology of navy camouflage seems to be lifted straight from the pages of Harry Potter. Modern fight zones are bristling with thermal sensors succesful of detecting people and automobiles purely from their heat signatures. Ukrainian drones are already deploying infra-red sensors to home in on Russian troopers’ physique heat.

For this very motive, the US Marines are anticipating supply of their own “invisibility cloak” by 2030. The Multispectral Camouflage Overgarment, or MCO, “is intended to provide individual signature management for Marines by mitigating detection across the visual (VIS), near infrared (NIR), and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectrums as well as suppress thermal signatures in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and long wave infrared (LWIR) to reduce the likelihood of detection by thermal sensors,” according to a latest Marine Corps gear order.

The Marines have said they require 13,000 of these cloaks by 2027, and 61,000 by 2030.

Meanwhile, certain Royal Marines models in the UK are already utilising the Barracuda cloak, manufactured by Swedish firm Saab. The poncho-style garment, which can also be deployed as a camouflage drape for bivouacs, presents low visibility across a number of sensor varieties as properly as, crucially, to the bare eye.

Drone killers

The battle in Ukraine has demonstrated how much of the “cutting edge” weaponry developed for large-scale superpower confrontations has been rendered out of date by small, comparatively inexpensive drones. The next technology of drone warfare, that includes huge “swarms” of unbiased yet co-ordinated drones designed to overwhelm standard defences, has navy chiefs involved.

General John Murray, head of the US Army Futures Command, cautions that these next-generation weapons can strike at such velocity and in such portions that no human defender can realistically fight them. “When you are defending against a drone swarm, a human may be required to make that first decision, but I am just not sure any human can keep up,” he said.

Martijn Rasser from navy think-tank Centre for a New American Security suggests kamikaze drones could show the very best first-strike weapon: “You throw so much mass at [an air defence facility] and so many numbers that the system is overwhelmed.

“This, of course, has a lot of tactical advantages on a battlefield,” he told German news outlet Deutsche Welle. “No shock, a lot of international locations are very in pursuing these varieties of capabilities.”

Unsurprisingly, measures are already being implemented to counter this next-generation threat. On US aircraft carriers, an integrated network of aircraft, missiles and microwave “death rays” would be deployed to neutralise the assault of an incoming drone swarm.

The death ray — or more precisely the Epirus Leonidas — is a high-power microwave (HPM) weapon designed to neutralise large numbers of incoming drones. The system can select individual targets or operate in wide beam mode to blanket a large area, affecting any electronic device within its “kill zone.”

Beyond aerial drones, the system can also disable AI-guided boats of the kind deployed by Ukraine to devastating effect against Russia‘s Black Sea fleet. Leonidas “was efficient against vessel motors at document ranges” during recent tests, according to a US navy announcement.

Epirus CEO Andy Lowery told Defense News: “Leonidas, by its nature, it’s just an old style platform. We’ve made drive fields … of electromagnetic vitality. Whether that electromagnetic vitality spoils a drone’s electronics from working accurately or spoils a boat’s motor, or use your creativeness, anything with little computer systems in it and stuff, is inclined to these persistent fields of vitality.”

Combat robots

“Robot wars are already taking place,” says Oleksandr Afanasiev from the Ukrainian army’s K-2 brigade, which is amongst the first to deploy “armed uncrewed ground automobiles,” or killer robots. Ukrainian and Russian combat robots have reportedly clashed on the battlefield without any human presence. Robots, he explains, are far easier to repair and replace than human soldiers – and are entirely without fear: “They open fire on a battlefield where an infantryman would be afraid to flip up. But a UGV is comfortable to risk its existence.”

The deputy commander of the 33rd Detached Mechanised Brigade’s tank battalion, who uses the codename Afghan, told the BBC that one Ukrainian UGV armed with a machine gun ambushed a Russian personnel carrier, while another robot defended a Ukrainian position for weeks.

He emphasised that although the operators of these robots may not be physically present on the front line, the decision to fire a lethal shot remains in human hands. He continued: “Modern UGVs are part-autonomous. They can transfer on their own, they can observe and detect the enemy. But still, the choice to open fire is made by a human, their operator,” he said.

“Robots can misidentify the mistaken individual or attack a civilian. That’s why the closing choice must be made by an operator.”

At present, combat robots tend to be compact tracked vehicles, however Maksym Vasylchenko, director of specialist robot manufacturers Tencore, believes that humanoid “terminators” will be prowling the battlefield far sooner than most anticipate. “It won’t be science fiction any more,” he said.

Smart bullets

Hitting a stationary target with a firearm is simple enough, but on a fast-moving, unpredictable battlefield, the challenge becomes far greater. In 2008, the EXACTO programme was launched by US weapons research agency DARPA, with the aim of developing a “fire-and-forget” smart sniper rifle system incorporating a guided intelligent projectile.

The bullet is engineered to alter its trajectory mid-flight, homing in on its designated target regardless of where it moves. Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, USA have already produced a prototype, backed by funding from Lockheed Martin.

Much of the core technology behind DARPA’s smart bullet remains strictly classified. However, it has been disclosed that the EXACTO round was developed utilising “optical sighting technology” to extend “day and nighttime vary over present state-of-the-art sniper systems.”

Test footage of the EXACTO bullet in action shows it sharply adjusting its course as the target is repositioned. Perhaps most unsettlingly, the released trial video demonstrates both seasoned marksmen and complete novices firing the experimental round with identical precision — effectively turning every soldier on the battlefield into a lethal sharpshooter.

Combined with the newly developed heartbeat-detecting Ghjost Murmur technology, sensible bullets could show a near-unstoppable pairing. Tomorrow’s battlefields may properly become no place for a human being.