6 ms·

I'm surprised we don't see more military research for SAT-NAV alternatives. In any big conflict SAT-NAV is trivial to turn off. If you can still position yourse

by rocqua 3y ago

I'm surprised we don't see more military research for SAT-NAV alternatives. In any big conflict SAT-NAV is trivial to turn off. If you can still position yourself and your enemy can't, that is an enormous advantage in targeting, logistics, coordination, and situational awareness. Seems like a no-brainer.

HyperSane 3y ago
The US military is working on a device that can use stars to determine location even during the day.
- buildbot 3y ago
  Couldn’t that be just celestial navigation with a very specific notch filter for starlight wavelengths? So you can see stars in daylight?
  - K0balt 3y ago
    Basically, ultra high dynamic range.
  - mnw21cam 3y ago
    Stars are broadband light sources, there isn't a specific starlight wavelength. Likewise, the Raleigh scattering in the atmosphere is largely a broadband source of light, since it is a reflection of our sun's light. You might get some slight benefit by looking at the redder end of the spectrum, but the improvement won't be massive. However, stars are (to the nearest approximation) point sources. If you use a telescope and zoom in to the star, then you can spread the atmosphere brightness over a large area while concentrating the starlight into a very small area, which means you can see stars during the day. Couple that with a reasonable level of high dynamic range sensor and integration over time, and it would be quite possible to observe the positions of a load of stars during the day.
- tivert 3y ago
  > The US military is working on a device that can use stars to determine location even during the day. They already developed a device that could do that in the 60s, but it was quite large: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Astro-inertial_navigation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Astro... https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/nortronics-nas-14v2-astroinertial-navigation-system https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/nortronics... Do you have a source for the one you say they're working on? Is more portable or hand-held?
  - HyperSane 3y ago
    https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a36078957/celestial-navigation/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a36078957... https://insidegnss.com/the-stars-return-draper-patents-celestial-navigation-system/ https://insidegnss.com/the-stars-return-draper-patents-celes...
kebman 3y ago
You're probably surprised that you don't see it, because it's top secret. Here's an example of something you don't hear about: AI Assisted Battlefield Tactics. While I've never heard of it (certainly not in the press), I simply assume that they're doing research on it. I base this assumption on the AlphaStar AI from DeepMind that would completely pawn Grand Masters in the game of StarCraft 2. While AlphaStar is obviously designed for a game with very set rules and weights, I don't think it's unfeasible to develop a similar military AI that could also work in the shifting tactics of the modern battlefields. The result would be comical, as larger armies without such an AI would always lose to someone with that AI, even if their army is much smaller or seemingly technologically disadvantaged. And it would seem that there's at least one such country in such a position today, which is also heavily supported by the NATO.
- sakras 3y ago
  AlphaStar hardly pawned GMs in any meaningful way. It mainly won on mechanics, even when Deepmind tried to nerf its mechanics. Probably the most important thing is that the “200 APM limit” is way higher than any human can do, because it made use of each one of its actions. Humans can reach 400+ APM by spamming, but their EPM will stay much lower than 200. The result is that it had god-tier micro that changed the game completely: zergling runby’s are normally good for Zerg and bad for Protoss. With alphastar, it was the opposite, because it could micro to avoid losing any workers. Its disruptor micro was again unmatched. Now, my last argument for why alphastar wasn’t some sort of brilliant tactician was that eventually people figured out that it’s susceptible to all the same problems a normal bot is: you can dart a warp prism in and out of its vision and it will send its army back and forth, you can confuse it by going mass raven/PF etc. and it’s completely unable to adapt. So in conclusion, no: AlphaStar doesn’t say anything one way or another about military AIs.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    The word is pwned, not pawned, by the way. I suspect your autocorrect, as well as op’s has had it’s way with your prose. I often wonder how much autocorrect will shape the evolution of language.
dasv 3y ago
Lately I have been trying to improve performance of a high precision RTK GNSS receiver installed somewhere high up on the Barents sea, near the Russian border with Norway. Some days it works perfectly down to cm accuracy, but other days it is not able to hold an RTK fix at all. I was suspecting the northern lights were to blame for most of this trouble since the bad performance periods more or less track to high Kp periods, but it seems that it may be man made interference... There are recent reports from planes flying routes over that area about bad GNSS reception, and efforts from NKOM to log conditions with mobile antennas. It's probably happening already.

by rocqua 3y ago

HyperSane 3y ago

The US military is working on a device that can use stars to determine location even during the day.

buildbot 3y ago
Couldn’t that be just celestial navigation with a very specific notch filter for starlight wavelengths? So you can see stars in daylight?
- K0balt 3y ago
  Basically, ultra high dynamic range.
- mnw21cam 3y ago
  Stars are broadband light sources, there isn't a specific starlight wavelength. Likewise, the Raleigh scattering in the atmosphere is largely a broadband source of light, since it is a reflection of our sun's light. You might get some slight benefit by looking at the redder end of the spectrum, but the improvement won't be massive. However, stars are (to the nearest approximation) point sources. If you use a telescope and zoom in to the star, then you can spread the atmosphere brightness over a large area while concentrating the starlight into a very small area, which means you can see stars during the day. Couple that with a reasonable level of high dynamic range sensor and integration over time, and it would be quite possible to observe the positions of a load of stars during the day.
tivert 3y ago
> The US military is working on a device that can use stars to determine location even during the day. They already developed a device that could do that in the 60s, but it was quite large: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Astro-inertial_navigation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Astro... https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/nortronics-nas-14v2-astroinertial-navigation-system https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/nortronics... Do you have a source for the one you say they're working on? Is more portable or hand-held?
- HyperSane 3y ago
  https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a36078957/celestial-navigation/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a36078957... https://insidegnss.com/the-stars-return-draper-patents-celestial-navigation-system/ https://insidegnss.com/the-stars-return-draper-patents-celes...

kebman 3y ago

You're probably surprised that you don't see it, because it's top secret. Here's an example of something you don't hear about: AI Assisted Battlefield Tactics. While I've never heard of it (certainly not in the press), I simply assume that they're doing research on it. I base this assumption on the AlphaStar AI from DeepMind that would completely pawn Grand Masters in the game of StarCraft 2. While AlphaStar is obviously designed for a game with very set rules and weights, I don't think it's unfeasible to develop a similar military AI that could also work in the shifting tactics of the modern battlefields. The result would be comical, as larger armies without such an AI would always lose to someone with that AI, even if their army is much smaller or seemingly technologically disadvantaged. And it would seem that there's at least one such country in such a position today, which is also heavily supported by the NATO.

sakras 3y ago
AlphaStar hardly pawned GMs in any meaningful way. It mainly won on mechanics, even when Deepmind tried to nerf its mechanics. Probably the most important thing is that the “200 APM limit” is way higher than any human can do, because it made use of each one of its actions. Humans can reach 400+ APM by spamming, but their EPM will stay much lower than 200. The result is that it had god-tier micro that changed the game completely: zergling runby’s are normally good for Zerg and bad for Protoss. With alphastar, it was the opposite, because it could micro to avoid losing any workers. Its disruptor micro was again unmatched. Now, my last argument for why alphastar wasn’t some sort of brilliant tactician was that eventually people figured out that it’s susceptible to all the same problems a normal bot is: you can dart a warp prism in and out of its vision and it will send its army back and forth, you can confuse it by going mass raven/PF etc. and it’s completely unable to adapt. So in conclusion, no: AlphaStar doesn’t say anything one way or another about military AIs.
- K0balt 3y ago
  The word is pwned, not pawned, by the way. I suspect your autocorrect, as well as op’s has had it’s way with your prose. I often wonder how much autocorrect will shape the evolution of language.

dasv 3y ago

Lately I have been trying to improve performance of a high precision RTK GNSS receiver installed somewhere high up on the Barents sea, near the Russian border with Norway. Some days it works perfectly down to cm accuracy, but other days it is not able to hold an RTK fix at all. I was suspecting the northern lights were to blame for most of this trouble since the bad performance periods more or less track to high Kp periods, but it seems that it may be man made interference... There are recent reports from planes flying routes over that area about bad GNSS reception, and efforts from NKOM to log conditions with mobile antennas. It's probably happening already.