Iran's Network of Cameras Bolsters Air Defenses, Expert Says

JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

“Following the 12-day war with Israel in June, Iranian authorities learned that Israel could easily locate their radar systems and take them out, leaving Tehran’s forces blind to the skies above, Avivi said. Unlike the radar installations, the cameras don't transmit a signal that Israel can use to locate them, he added.”

Damn innovative.

▲

ceejayoz 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's a pretty old idea, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_mirror

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/war-sound-locators-before-...

▲

itopaloglu83 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Might be good for early detection, but unfortunately doesn't provide any defense on its own.

	▲	ceejayoz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Early detection lets you prepare the defenses. Like getting some MANPADS teams in the route of an oncoming helicopter assault.

▲

aftbit 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ukraine has a sound-based version of this, supposedly using cell phones as the primary hardware element. The idea is to scatter hundreds of sensors along the front in some depth, then use simple on-device models to classify sounds and send an alert when a sound matching a known drone signature is detected.

▲

kklisura 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Huh. Reminds me of this video "tracking faint objects like stealth fighters with cheap cameras" [1] and HN post [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-b51C82-UE

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43643207

▲

lolbutwait 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Like Elon’s camera based self driving does it also make a lot of mistakes?

I bet modern radar can tell the difference between a bird, plane, baseball, and missile, but a camera based one is full of false positives.

▲

cogman10 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It might, but I'm not sure how much of an issue a false positive is. It's not like Iran has an airforce and it's not like there a bunch of civilian planes flying over head.

Also, modern radar can't always tell the difference between a bird and a plane. Especially when dealing with stealth vehicles.

▲

chistev 4 hours ago | parent [-]

A false positive can be a problem if you're shooting missiles at things that aren't real threats, no? Those missiles cost money.

	▲	cogman10 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's a problem depending on how often it happens. Letting a bomber through that takes out a military installation or desalination plant is worse.

▲

oa335 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Widely available image recognition software can tell the difference between birds, planes, baseballs and missiles already.

▲

the__alchemist 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Depends. It would be a non-trivial problem when dealing with only 1 - a few pixels, which is likely.

	▲	ceejayoz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's not that hard. Planes and birds act pretty differently, even when pixel sized. Doubly so when you've multiple cameras networked all over the area.

▲

zoklet-enjoyer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's pretty cool. We need a decentralized civilian network like that to identify UFOs