Dolphins and Whales Inspire New Radar System Designed to Detect Hidden Explosive Devices
Article: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2013/oct/13_188.shtml
Just last month, Researchers from the University of Southampton have discovered a new radar technique that could be used to find an improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in hidden on the road, and the finding was inspired from an unlikely source: dolphins. The technology could also be used to find buried earthquake victims, animals marked with tags, or tiny surveillance devices hidden in walls. This is all thanks to the dolphin hunting technique known as "Bubble-netting", where dolphins continuously circle a school of fish and contain them by swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the vortex currents that are formed. The dolphin will often then examine it visually and with sonar, and it's this sonar which has led to this new radar system.
I chose this article because it is relevant to what we were hearing from cetacean researchers at school, I think that we also talked about it in class. We also talked about Sound in the ocean. This bubble net causes sound in the form of SONAR, but so do the fish that the dolphins surround. The observed procedure of the dolphins inspired this new radar which can differentiate between dangerous and normal devices. The dolphin's have to keep track of their bubble nets, which force the fish to cluster together. And their sonar would not work if they could not distinguish the fish from the bubbles. This article definitely linked with what we had been talking about and also what I am interested in, the potential military uses of the way ocean animals cooperate and hunt their prey.
The article suggests that the Navy are most likely going to be using this type of radar, as well as land-based security forces like the TSA for remotely inspecting electronic devices. This article is significant in that this is the first stage (as you can see from the picture) in a long future of twin inverted pulse radar systems that could save lives, all inspired by the way dolphins have learned to hunt (slightly more beneficial then having them blow things up for us). bye!
I chose this article because it is relevant to what we were hearing from cetacean researchers at school, I think that we also talked about it in class. We also talked about Sound in the ocean. This bubble net causes sound in the form of SONAR, but so do the fish that the dolphins surround. The observed procedure of the dolphins inspired this new radar which can differentiate between dangerous and normal devices. The dolphin's have to keep track of their bubble nets, which force the fish to cluster together. And their sonar would not work if they could not distinguish the fish from the bubbles. This article definitely linked with what we had been talking about and also what I am interested in, the potential military uses of the way ocean animals cooperate and hunt their prey.
The article suggests that the Navy are most likely going to be using this type of radar, as well as land-based security forces like the TSA for remotely inspecting electronic devices. This article is significant in that this is the first stage (as you can see from the picture) in a long future of twin inverted pulse radar systems that could save lives, all inspired by the way dolphins have learned to hunt (slightly more beneficial then having them blow things up for us). bye!