Stopping suspicious vehicles - innovation in action

Back in March this year, the US Air Force launched an "Open Innovation Pavilion", seeking solutions to four technical problems.

The newly launched Pavilion already features more than $100,000 in prizes for novel solutions to four tough challenges facing the U.S. Air Force:

• The Design and Simulation of an Accurate Shooter-Locator competition challenges innovators to develop a method to detect small arms fire within a fraction of a second and accurately pinpoint its source;
• The Humanitarian Air Drop challenge seeks novel ways to drop humanitarian supplies into populated areas without danger of falling debris to the people below;
• The Vehicle Stopper challenge seeks a viable, sustainable, and affordable means of stopping an uncooperative fleeing vehicle without permanent damage to the vehicle or harm to any of its passengers; and
• The Remote Human Demographic Characterization challenge seeks a system that can determine the approximate age and gender of small groups of people at a distance.

There's more at the link.

The Vehicle Stopper challenge sought "a viable, sustainable and affordable means of stopping an uncooperative fleeing vehicle (small car or truck) without permanent damage to the vehicle or harming any of the occupants." It attracted a great deal of interest. The White House Office of Science & Technology blog reports:

Within 60 days, there were 1,071 people signed up to tackle this problem. Of these interested parties, 119 people provided a wide range of detailed proposed solutions. A team of AFRL researchers evaluated these proposals and one really stood out. The team unanimously judged that this novel idea met all of the requirements.

The solution provider, Dante Barbis, was a retired 66-year-old mechanical engineer from Lima, Peru, and under the terms of the challenge he was awarded $25,000 for the rights to use his idea. The solution consists of a remote electric-powered vehicle that can accelerate up to 130 MPH within 3 seconds, position itself under a fleeing car, then automatically trigger a restrained airbag to lift the car and slide it to a stop. This design overcomes the previous restrictions of having to preposition the system. It is almost universally applicable to multiple scenarios and it is very affordable. AFRL has assigned a team and allocated funding to build and test a prototype based on Barbis’s detailed design. If the system passes all the operational testing, the prototype will be demonstrated to the USAF Security Forces and the design will be transitioned for operational use.

Again, more at the link.

I have to admit, I'm impressed! I'd never have thought of inflating an airbag underneath a vehicle to immobilize it - nor would I have thought of driving what's effectively a remote-controlled model car underneath a moving vehicle to do so. Simple, yet - at least in theory - very effective. Ingenious!

Of course, the fun will start when the remote-controlled car has to be steered underneath the target vehicle on a road full of other vehicles. They'll be traveling in both directions, changing lanes, turning, and so on. Preventing them from squashing the remote-controlled vehicle in the process is going to be interesting . . .

Another approach to solving the same problem has been developed by the Department of Homeland Security. Its SQUID (Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device) "resembles a cheese wheel full of holes. When open (deployed), it becomes a mass of tentacles entangling the axles. By stopping the axles instead of the wheels, SQUID may change how fleeing drivers are, quite literally, caught." Here's a video of a SQUID prototype being tested.

It's also ingenious, but I'd like to know how much such a high-tech solution costs. I have a feeling it'll be rather more expensive than an airbag attached to a radio-controlled car! It's also restricted to a situation where the target vehicle has no alternative but to pass over it. The remote-controlled car has a better chance of catching up to, and stopping, a vehicle that has greater freedom of movement.

Peter