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Inflatable rubber balls are dropped from an aircraft into an area suspected of harboring live, deprecated ordinance.
Packed with shock-hardened GPS and inertial sensors and equipped with a small energy source and moveable weights internally to partially control and enhance rebounds, they bounce around
the area sending back positional information to the mother-ship, until they hit a landmine or run out of energy.
The ones that haven't found anything can be collected, recharged and reused. If the area is deemed "too hot" for a ground-based collection, they can be set to reserve enough energy for one final jump into the air as the collection aircraft passes over to catch them in a cargo net.
[link]
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I'd like to watch any of that, but it'll be tricky to explain to kids that the bouncing balls are where they *shouldn't* go. |
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Why inflatable? My first thought would have been solid rubber. Can we really make inflatable balls that jump high enough to be recaptured by an airplane? |
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//why inflatable?//
quite a thick skin, but it's there mostly to keep the internal powered , sprung "spokes" from getting hung up in trees and branches and bent out of shape from rocks. |
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Comes in Smiley Face, Yin & Yang and Peace Sign. |
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Might smash worms and helpful bacteria, so Toaster must get the bone on this one via his own logic, and undermining a humanitarian idea with just silliness. |
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What is the big to-do about mines, lately? |
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...But... I would like to see a B52 fully loaded with balls dump them, especially instead of aerial bombs. |
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