DARPA wants to tag every soldier

[[R-CON]creepin]

DARPA, the Pentagon boffinry outfit which bestrides the tech world like some mighty, erratic robot colossus with a frikkin laser beam on its head, has made a new move. The plan is to electronically tag US combat soldiers in a similar fashion to criminals under judicial restraint, the idea being that the troops can then be swiftly found and rescued if they get into trouble.
DARPA calls the plan "Individual Force Protection System", and it intends to have it taken forward by monster US defence contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Apparently in DARPA's view, "SAIC is the only known source in the case of a follow-on requirement with the in-depth knowledge and experience with the Individual Force Protection System".
IFPS has already undergone extensive development under a previous contract. It evidently isn't ready to go yet, though, as "DARPA requires research, development and technical services to complete development". The research agency issued notice of its plan to go on with SAIC last week.
According to this presentation (pdf), given last year by DARPA officials, IFPS would consist of a small, three-inch lightweight tag attached to a soldier's uniform and a variety of vehicle-borne or portable receivers which could locate the tag even amid the busy electromagnetic spectrum of the modern battlefield. The DARPA people believe that there's no need to have GPS satnav in the tag itself, allowing its battery to last much longer, and that tracking ranges as good as 150km (in line of sight) would be possible.
All this is considerably better performance than current commercial offerings. The IFPS tags could still make sense for US ground forces even if they were fully equipped with systems such as Land Warrior, which provide a lot of digital comms nodes and GPS sets throughout a ground unit.
Firstly, defeated soldiers in an escape-and-evade situation often have to dump a lot of their equipment, so the Land Warrior terminals might well have been thrown away. Secondly, at present only team leaders carry the Land Warrior gear anyway because of its weight. The comparatively teeny IFPS tags could easily be worn round every soldier's neck along with his dogtags, allowing friendly forces to find him even if he'd lost touch with the military comms net. (There would obviously need to be ironclad security on devices of this kind, or our man wouldn't be doing much escaping and evading.)
DARPA does seem as though it might be open to some criticism on the idea that only SAIC can possibly take IFPS forward. Other companies are offering systems right now with similar capabilities, though there are differences of detail. The UK's Miltrak, for instance, uses standard mobile phone and satnav electronics in suitable ruggedised cases and is on the front lines in Afghanistan right now.
In any event, hardcore compound-dwelling libertarians will no doubt be smiling thin, snaggle-toothed smiles over their tin mugs of untaxed home-made bathtub moonshine at the news as they savour the irony. Rather than the free sons of America being tagged up and their every move watched from on high by federal helicopters (doubtless of sombre colour scheme), it seems that in fact it is the very government troops themselves who will be monitored. ®


DARPA plans soldier-tagging system for US troops | The Register

[[R-DEV]Ninja2dan]

Anyone able to pull up a list of the number of soldiers/contractors/government civilians that have gone missing during the conflict? I bet that number would be quite lower if we had something like this in place when the war started.

[[R-CON]creepin]

true words.but when they are captured by the talis they'd probably be stripped of their uniform. we need implanted sensors minority report style!

[ryan d ale]

The benefits of using them in war are vast.

However, it must make one realise that this sort of thing will be pushed on the civillian market too and may eventually become part of your daily lifes in a dystopia.

Remember the debate for microchips in UK bins and those lovely fines that our masters would be able to push on us for not conforming to their waste disposal Hitlery?

Your car and how far you travel and your 'global warming' tax. Also can be used to monitor your petrol rations.

[Rudd]

Hate to sound morbid, but if the insurgents know about the tags they won't take prisoners, or they will use the tags to create ambushes for rescuers.

But from reading about all this kind of Future Combat System stuff it looks like the way we are going, and knowing the exact locations of ur guys will be useful.

Ironclad security on these things eh? They would probably work against our current enemies at least.

[[R-DEV]Thermis]

Not sure 100% sure about this but, I seem to remember hearing about something like this yet along with location and tracking it would also contain the soldiers medical information. Helping medical personal on the battlefield evaluate and treat casualties better. Which I can see being very useful.

[Harrod200]

Pros; Easily trackable
Cons; Easily trackable

ANY signal you give to alert your friendly forces can easily be intercepted by moderately advanced nearby hostiles and used to find you first. It's a system with its advantages, but like all passive locating systems, has that same disadvantage.

In the current environment it's a great idea, but if we go up against someone with home advantage and tracking systems (pretty damned hard to find a radio transciever under ground), they can pinpoint friendly forces with ease.

[WNxKenwayy]

yes they are gearing up to inject soldiers with a small tag inside their bodies containing all their medical info. No tracking with it, but it would allow medics to have instant access to all relevant data to treat a soldier. Pretty pimp.

next, in the case were we fight an advanced enemy, we'd just take the trackers off.

[USMC[KILLER]]

its the RFID chip

[[R-DEV]OkitaMakoto]

ID tagged soldiers carry ID tagged weapons, wearing ID tagged gear...
Sons of the Patriots system[SOP], here we come.

Interesting. It would certainly help, and as long as we took into account that the message is also, possibly, available to the enemy, I dont think we'd simply wander in and not take some precautions...

Interesting stuff.