NEW YORK -- It's Fleet Week in New York. Which means massive ships are parked along the West Side Highway. Thousands of crisp, white uniforms roam Times Square. And a robotic boat display comes complete with gun detectors, a sonic blaster and leggy, retro-pinup models.
Inside the USS Kearsage, a hulking 40,000-ton amphibious assault ship, the Office of Naval Research showed off its Navy Expeditionary Overwatch (NEO) program. Begun in 2006, the project networks together a drone, a sensor-equipped Humvee and an unmanned ship to hunt for adversary activity -- especially gunfire. The system recently completed a seven-month trial in western Iraq.
An infrared detector mounted on the Humvee's roof looks out for muzzle flashes. An acoustic sensor listens for shots. And an array of 13 cameras takes video footage of the world outside the vehicle, in 360 degrees. When a gun is fired, the sensors combine to find the shooter. A push of a button slews the weapon, on the top of the Humvee, to the target. "All the operator has to do is pull the trigger," explains Nelson Mills, the NEO program manager.
The souped-up Hummer shares data with a Scan Eagle robotic spy plane. The drone also looks for threats on its own -- and relays orders to a 38-foot, converted Italian racing boat. This unmanned surface vehicle, or USV, is piloted from the shore. It's armed with an acoustic gunshot detector of its own. Wedged onto the USV's gun mount is a set of day/night cameras, a "Big Ears" long-range parabolic microphone and a Long Range Acoustic Device. Depending on who you ask, the machine is either a "hailer" for signaling people far away -- or a sonic weapon.
By the second phase of the NEO project, scheduled for 2012 or so, the robotic boat could be outfitted with even deadlier weapons. And it could operate on its own, somewhat, avoiding logs and other boats in the water.
But, during my visit, the USV and its program manager had other challenges to overcome. This was Mills' first time in New York. The West Virginia native was "scared," he admitted. "You know, because of all the stuff you see in those movies." But he seemed to overcome his fear as he directed a trio of USO models dressed like World War II-era pin-ups in a series of poses across his robotic boat.
Pictures, after the jump.
The USS Kearsage, docked off of Manhattan's west side, hosts an array of vehicles on its flight deck.
The NEO program's sensor display includes an auto-targeting gun.
USO models prepare to board NEO's robotic boat. In the foreground is the program's spy drone; in the background, its sonic blaster.
[Photos: Noah Shachtman]
