Human thought in the field of creating new weapons does not stand still. In the XX century and the coming XXI, this process has accelerated many times, starting the last century with sweeping cavalry attacks of the First World War, already in the Second World War, mankind stepped with tanks as the main force of the breakthrough. This was followed by the invention of nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, missiles, man flew into space and even began to use him for military purposes. The development of modern weapons, pushed by the growth of the computer industry, is leading to the fact that someday only robotic equipment will remain on the battlefields, and the soldiers controlling it will be at a decent distance from the battlefield. And this will be just the beginning, because already now in many countries of the world are developing technologies for controlling military equipment by the power of human thought.
The fact that military thought is moving along the path of increasing robotization of military equipment is well illustrated by the latest developments both in Russia and in the United States. In America, tests of the new X47B unmanned aerial vehicle are in full swing. The X-47 Pegasus is an unmanned combat aircraft program run by Northrop Grumman and overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is assumed that this unmanned aircraft will be able to perform takeoff and landing from the deck of an aircraft carrier.
On the basis of the X47B model in the United States, it was supposed to work out the concept of a super-maneuverable, stealthy unmanned fighter, although experts admit that at the moment the aircraft will not be able to perform all the tasks assigned to it, especially concerning the conduct of maneuverable air combat, it will take another 10-15 years. At the moment, this is largely hampered by modern computers, the level of performance of which was not enough for the development of a fully autonomous aircraft. Despite this, the aircraft will be quite capable of conducting electronic warfare, independently refueling in the air and striking ground and sea targets.
In Russia, meanwhile, the situation with drones is much worse, but there are fully operational developments in the field of combat robots. Developed by Russian gunsmiths, the MRK-27BT tracked combat robot is armed with a small arsenal of 7.62 mm. machine gun "Pecheneg", two rocket-propelled flamethrowers "Shmel" and two rocket-propelled assault grenades RShG-2. Guidance and control of the complex is carried out remotely using four eye-TV cameras, which allow the operator of the robot soldier to easily direct and control the target. The complex of weapons of the robot is capable of hitting various targets: the manpower of a potential enemy both in the open field and in field fortifications, pillboxes, buildings, and also hitting light armored vehicles. The mass of the MRK-27BT reaches 180 kg., And the speed of movement in the terrain is approximately 0.7 m / s. The capacity of its two batteries is sufficient for continuous operation for 4 hours.
In addition to standard combat targets, the MRK-27BT can also be used to evacuate and destroy various explosive devices. In addition to the usual equipment for these purposes, the MRK-27BT can receive a special hydro-breaker "Vasilek", which is a recoilless device, into the cylinder of which water is poured. A small propellant charge that explodes inside the cylinder creates a fairly strong pressure of hundreds of atmospheres, which pushes the water out of the nozzle and destroys the explosive device.
And if these developments are already acquiring a very real technical embodiment, then with devices for reading human thoughts, things are not so good, although significant progress is evident here too. Not so long ago, the US Army signed a $ 4 million contract with a company that committed itself to developing "telepathic helmets" that read the impulses of the human brain (read minds). Ultimately, the military wants to get a device that will make it possible to establish telepathic communication between soldiers, and in the future, direct telepathic control of various military equipment. And if earlier such developments could be called nonsense, now it is becoming a reality. Similar developments are underway in Russia.
Currently, the power of computers and penetration into the mechanisms of the human brain have allowed scientists to begin work on identifying the characteristics of neurological signals sweeping through the brain when a person is, as it were, talking to himself. At the first stage, the task of the military is to learn how to intercept these impulses using rather sophisticated software, which then turns them into sound signals over the radio, addressed to other soldiers on the battlefield. "It will be like a radio without a microphone," says the director of the American program - Dr. Elmar Schmeisser (military researcher neurophysiologist). In his opinion, the military is already trained in the ability to express themselves in very simple and clear stereotypical expressions, and this is not far from the ability to think in the same way.
The apparatus, which the military is now developing, will possibly take on material embodiment only in 10-20 years. In a contract for 5 years, which the US Army signed in 2007 with the winners of the tender - a group of scientists from several prominent universities in the country (University of Maryland, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at Irvine), the task was set to "decipher the activity of the human brain", thus, so that a military man can transmit orders by radio to one or several of his colleagues, simply saying the order to himself and thinking about who he wants to address it to. At the first stage, the "recipients" will probably hear only a synthesized voice that will read out the orders. But in the future, scientists are going to develop a version of the program that will read messages in the voice of the person who gives them, as well as indicate the location and degree of distance between the speaker and the listener.
Telepathic Helmet
The main difficulty in the implementation of the plan lies in the development of computer programs that would be able to penetrate the brain impulses responsible for speech. The corresponding impulses are captured by a system that includes 128 sensors built into a special telepathic helmet. These sensors must record weak electrical charges that are generated by the neural circuits of the brain when we carry out the thought process. At the output, on the monitor screen, we get an electroencephalogram, which is to be studied in order to identify those impulses that are the keys to communication.
All this will take a sufficient amount of time, but already now these developments are of great interest in many countries of the world. They also have a completely civilian purpose. For example, in the age of ubiquitous cellular communication, we often meet people using a Bluetooth headset and talking at the top of their voice. And what will happen if instead of this Bluetooth headset we get a Bluetooth helmet and these people, who often annoy us, talk with their mouths closed - we will get a sweet silence.
