Millimetre Band Sensors

[Icosahedron]

Has anyone seen any RPG-oriented information on mm wavelength scanners?

AFAIK, these are the things from the movies that show an X-ray like real-time moving picture through walls. AIUI, they do exist, but the technology is perhaps not as 'polished' as it is shown in the movies.

I'd rather avoid wading through technical papers to collect enough info to make a house rule if someone has already done it.

I just thought about it when I read this post:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=280167&postcount=29

and thought about grav gunships with mm scanners picking off insurgents as they try to sneak through buildings.

No more 'Oh, sorry, we thought there were terrorists in the orphanage.' You know they are there (or not there) cos you can see em.

 

[Gadrin]

Tells you how it works ? I don't think so, that's up to you...

http://www.rmc.ca/academic/gradrech/millimeter-e.pdf


GURPS offers the PESA and AESA (Passive and Active Electromagnetic Sensor Array) as well as Passive Radar (mm wave), both cover more or less all ends of the EM spectrum. They also offer the Radscanner to detect different types of radiation (say Gamma raditation fer instance). Most sophisticatedTL9+ craft in the GURPS Traveller uni will have a PESA, and/or AESA.

GURPS also offers the Hand Densitometer for Traveller, which will let you image thru buildings, ground, starships etc for about 500 yards. MM wave won't penetrate metal. The Densitometer also comes in a giant shipboard model, for craft like the Donosev (those big booms). Densitometers have trouble with artificial gravity sources.

Their other books, offer other types of superscience-style sensors like a Multi-scanner (tricorder), xadar (x-ray radar, like the densitometer) and Gravscanner (more of the same).


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[Magnus von Thornwood]

Groovy.

Thanks Gad for the paper, I don't know about Icosa, but I am happy to wade through papers so, I look forward to reading this one.

 

[Gadrin]

The communication applications are just as interesting, especially the ability to work simultaneously in close proximity to many other similar comm devices, without interference.


The company claims on its web site that these can carry orders of magnitude more data than conventional
communications systems, can support an essentially unlimited number of users and are virtually impossible
to jam or detect. This makes them ideal for a wide range of applications from networking to through-thewall
radar and secure communications systems.

I'm assuming that's at our current TL, though as usually once you know how something works, it can be detected.

The U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army are testing radios that can transmit millions of coded pulses
each second over 2 gigahertz (2 billion hertz, or cycles) of bandwidth for covert communications. Time
Domain literature claims that transmissions from the radios, which operate with just 5 milliwatts spread
over more than 2 gigahertz of bandwidth, are "virtually indistinguishable from noise" and can only be
detected by a matched receiver. They can also pinpoint the location of other members of the unit.

Again I assume that's because it's a new tech but veterans of it's use can probably find it.

Doesn't the Apache Helo use MMWave Radar for it's targeting system ? Or possibly an imaging system ? (maybe that's what Imaging Radar is really all about).

Earlier in that PDF it mentions not only being able to find humans who are barely alive, but the resolution is so good that you can tell if they're breathing. I'm not sure how well that would image something in a "picture mode". Might just be an outline that can tell a heaving chest, etc.

If anyone knows, please speak up.

I also thought that Anthony mentioned once, that Passive Radar or MMWave Radar can easily be jammed by surrounding an object with chicken wire (like a house or a garage). So I'm not sure how it's going to work with re-bar. I'm not 100% sure what he actually said, since it was quite a while ago.



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[chshrkt]

I also thought that Anthony mentioned once, that Passive Radar or MMWave Radar can easily be jammed by surrounding an object with chicken wire (like a house or a garage). So I'm not sure how it's going to work with re-bar. I'm not 100% sure what he actually said, since it was quite a while ago.

If you ground the chicken wire it will stop *almost all electromagnetic transmissions/reception. My brother and I tested this theory back on the farm in the feed room, we could not get any radio reception once we closed the door (similarly covered and grounded with overlapping edges), no radio stations, AM or FM, no TV on the portable set, even standing right outside the door with walkie talkies; nuthin. Once we stepped outside the room, everything came to life.

* - I say 'almost' because I have no idea if MMWave Radar would be affected by it or if a really high powered transmitter could 'burn through' the shielding.

 

[Gadrin]

Yeah basically a Faraday Cage.

Probably SOP for most combat engineers and technology operators in TL9+ settings: know what can jam your device. Sophisticated criminals can simply
pad their drug lab or whatever with it and keep out the basic snoops.

By TTL12 or so, densitometers are around which can image thru walls, steel and probably just about anything without an artificial gravity field, so it's probably a small point in Traveller.



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[BlackBat242]

Yeah basically a Faraday Cage.

Probably SOP for most combat engineers and technology operators in TL9+ settings: know what can jam your device. Sophisticated criminals can simply
pad their drug lab or whatever with it and keep out the basic snoops.

By TTL12 or so, densitometers are around which can image thru walls, steel and probably just about anything without an artificial gravity field, so it's probably a small point in Traveller.
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emphasis mine

Which is why such persons began to install "variable-gravity exercise rooms" and "reduced-gravity sleep-chambers" in their dwellings.

And why those devices always seem to be in poor repair, and mis-tuned.