Road Patriot

[Nico]

I just saw this on a show about police this evening, but this reminds me of the comic book character Punisher with his remote control cars rigged up with all kinds of gear.
It's called "Road Patriot", and police are using it to stop high speed chases.
Here's a link to the picture on the maker's homepage:
<a href="http://ckent.org/patriot.jpg" target="_blank">http://ckent.org/patriot.jpg</a>
<a href="http://ckent.org/rp.html" target="_blank">http://ckent.org/rp.html</a>

A description from another site:
"This device came at the request the many law enforcement officers who have been involved in high speed chases who wished the runaway vehicle would just... stop. The Road Patriot as it is called, was designed to make a vehicle do exactly that. The actual electronics behind it are still classified (I'm sure for patent-related reasons), but the fundamental idea is public information. A device that looks like the chassis to an off road remote controlled car with a big metal coil on the top of it is strapped to the front of a patrol car. At the push of a button, the car is launched via a small rocket engine (the kind used in model rockets probably) from the front bumper of the patrol car toward the underside of the runaway car. Once the coil on top of the Road Patriot comes into contact with the chassis of the car, the manufacturers of the device claim it shorts the ignition of the car which then comes slowly to a stop. How this happens is a mystery, so it is unsure whether this process endangers the occupants of the vehicle or whether there is a spark to ignite the gas tank or some other potentially catastrophic side effect. In any case the vehicle is moving at highway speeds when the driver suddenly loses power, power steering, power breaks, and anything else that's electronic. It sounds like a potential recipe for disaster, but it could work."
<a href="http://www.honors.unr.edu/~jschind/weapons.html" target="_blank">http://www.honors.unr.edu/~jschind/weapons.html</a> (scroll down, there's other interesting tidbits here as well)

There's an archived thread from back in 1996 here: <a href="http://www.audifans.com/archives/1996/09/msg00071.html" target="_blank">http://www.audifans.com/archives/1996/09/msg00071.html</a>

It must not be in widespread use yet, but I thought it looked interesting. I'm not sure if it's EMP or what ...
As far as application to The Forum, I think it shows the possibilties for small packages that are capable of disabling vehicles without a lot of unnecessary damage. If these guys with their silly website can invent the Road Patriot, I'm sure the folks here can whip up something equally sweet.
One could have one of these guys mounted on their getaway vehicle, facing aft. The best defense is a good offense, right?
Radio Shack may see sales of their RC toys go up this year. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

I'm sorry if this seems a bit too much like "Battle Bots" ... I searched for 'patriot' and 'remote control' and nothing came up, so I figured it was okay to post.

[nbk2000]

Years ago, on a TV show called "RealTV", I saw a clip of this thing in actual use during a police pursuit.

The thing is rocket propelled, and hauls ASS! The cops where chasing this guys at like 80MPH and about 100 feet back.

Then FWOOSH! Off it goes in about a second under the car and it's lights blink out as the electronics fry the cars "brain".

Countermeasures that came to mind were to either block the device from getting under the car, trigger prematurely, or render it moot by driving an electronics free car.

Blocking could be to go lowrider, heavy chains or bars hanging from the rear bumper like on a merkva, or some other way of keeping the damn thing from scooting under your car. Naturally, whatever you use can't draw piggie attention, otherwise it'd be counterproductive if it was the thing that instigated the chase in the first place.

Shorting it out would be simple enough. Have a plastic rear fender that's well insulated from the car body. The bottom edge of the fender is covered with copper. When the probes on the patriot contact the copper, it triggers, dumping its power into shorting itself out. This assumes the thing can't be continuously zapping.

You could also have a plastic skid plate under the car body that would insulate it from the patriot. The skid plate should be designed so that it traps the patriot as far to the rear as possible so it could be shed at the first bump in the road.

A strictly electro-mechanical ignition system is pretty immune to electronic shock if I remember right. A '57 chevy may be the best getaway vehicle after all.

[Energy84]

Fleeing in a '57 chevy would indeed be fleeing in class! I love those cars so much...
But for those who can't afford to risk losing a 50 year old classic car (myself included), why not have a rearward projecting 'Sticky Foam' nozzle from the back of your car? (From the site in Nico's original post <a href="http://www.honors.unr.edu/~jschind/weapons.html" target="_blank">non-lethal weapons</a>)
When the foam is sprayed backwards while travelling at high speed, you would probably get an effective range of at least 75-100ft.(Would probably depend on how much turbulence your car makes as it travels) And when it hits the target vehicle, it would render it useless as the wipers will just get jammed up, blocking their view. And I'm sure that if it hit one of these Road Patriots, the expanding foam would create enough drag to either slow it down or curb its direction of travel, just as long as the foam doesn't blow off too easily at high speeds :rolleyes: ...

[nbk2000]

Lets assume that you can't blind the operator, but rather have to deflect/defeat the weapon itself.

Given the extremely short reaction time you'd have to respond with your defense, it'd have to either automatically triggered, or constantly on.

Short range radar like that used to measure baseball pitch speeds could possibly be modified to serve this purpose. Since the relative speed is key here, anything approaching you from the rear at more than 20MPH (faster than your speed), and at less than 10 yards is either a car about to ass end you, or a patriot attack.

Lets not go overboard with a mini-PHALANX firing out the rear license plate, shall we? :p

I'd think something simple like long bars of light plastic or such dropped across the roadway would cause the wheeled patriot to jump or flip, rendering it useless.

As a weapon, considering how fast the thing is going, I think wheels are obso.

Rather, ground effect could be used so it would skim just a few inches above the pavement, never actually touching it, thus immune to road defects (or simple countermeasures like bars) which could cause the patriot to miss.

Think it as a road torpedo! :D

If one was using offensively, an upward firing EFP would be good to disrupt the fuel tank, break the drivetrain, or kill the operator. And the undersides of vehicles are the most vulnerable.

[BoB-]

Hydraulic pumps could be used, when not being chased by the police :) the car would sit at a legal, heterosexual height off the ground, then with the flip of a switch the vehicle drops to 1" off the ground. Sheet metal protects the drivetrain and vulnerable underdside from bumps, and spikestrips.

[Anthony]

Like NBK said, anything with a mechanical distributor would likely be invulnerable, although the ignition coil might be damagable by an extreme discharge. Diesel would be totally invulnerable, but then old diesels suck power-wise and then new ones would be loaded with sensitive engine management black boxes.

I still don't get how it works. Putting a volatge across those two brass prongs would only create a local disturbance. Unless both prongs have a positive charge, and the power will flow to the negative side of the battery, which is earthed to the chassis. That would probably fry electronics. Not sure if it's physically possible to make a circuit like that though.

[john_smith]

The easiest way to trigger the defense system would probably be those parking aid thingies (aka Bosch Parkpilot etc). As much as I know, they're basically little rearward facing short-range radars. Not too fancy but easily obtainable and easy to adapt. Anything that comes closer than x feet behind your car during a police pursuit normally has something to do with cops, so additional discrimination isn't likely to be necessary.
As for the defense system itself, I've been thinking about variations of <a href="http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/antiambush_devices.htm" target="_blank">this</a> lately.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">One such measure involved mounting devices similar to claymore mines facing outward from the sides of vehicles. The vehicles were protected by reinforced backing plates and the mines were detonated electronically from within the cabs. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Or, basically, a bumper-mounted claymore. IF it would work, it would probaly be effective against the cop car itself also, as well as being useful in various situations like crashing roadblocks etc. Could a somewhat reinforced civilian car or truck stand the blasts I don't know. If somebody has more information on the vehicles described above...

[PYRO500]

There are a number of ways I think this device could work. I believe is is probobly just a capacitor or bank of them that rapidly pulse in series through a coil when the thing ends up under the car. From the picture of the thing I am guessing those three prong things sticking out of the top could be for determining when the device has gotten under your car and triggers the discharge of the capacitors. If this is a simple capacitor discharge through a coil thing shielding may not be easy.

The coil when pulsed induces very high currents in nearby metals/wires. In fact I'm guessing this little device would repell itself away from metal objects due to the eddie currents it induces in them. I'm not sure the power of the device so I can't tell you what the best way to shield would be. If you covered areas in copper plating the copper would have the currents induced in it and still have a magnetic field that could induce currents in nearby metals but would be signifigantly reduced.

[McGuyver]

Keep in mind that if the wires touch ANY metal on the car it will be rendered useless. High voltage/amperage will probably kill pretty much any car. Old or new.

I'm really not sure what is does exactly, but I'm pretty sure if high voltage is dumped into the ground on ANY engine it the mixture could pre-detonate or something like that. Because the spark across the spark plug will happen at the wrong time. That doesn't seem to be what it does though. If that happened a few cars might blow up or something. :)

I believe it might have something to do with the ignition wires being shorted or cut-off by a fuse blowing or something. High amps will take care of the ignition fuse in any car I think, and if the ignition is cut off everything will stop because it's like the key is no longer in. Then again I don't really no if there is an ignition fuse, I suppose there is. Seems reasonable.

[john_smith]

As much as I know, no car has a fuse in it's ignition circuit.
The logical solution for this might be replacing the car's wiring that uses the chassis as a ground with common "household type" + and - wires. Of course, this "logical" doesn't mean practical in real life...

[nbk2000]

Unless you could totally insulate the drive and power train from the chassis, the wiring wouldn't make any difference.

Insulation, and premature shorting of the patriot, would be the best defenses.

Another thing that might work would be to have a spare ignition system that's electrically isolated till manually engaged. I've seen electronic ignition systems that come in a portable case that you can hook up to a car and use to control the engine when the normal system is shot out. They cost like $500. Such a thing could be built into the car and, after a patriot attack, a switch is flipped to engage it and off you go again. :)

[PYRO500]

You could build a second very well shielded, and rugged ignition system... Or You could just use a diesel engine and protect the electroincs of the fuel system and such.

[Deceiver]

or you could just destroy the thing before they have the chance to use it

[nbk2000]

In order to destroy it before they can use it, you'd have to destroy the cop car that's carrying it. Hmmm, on second thought, that's not a bad idea. <img src="http://www.roguesci.org/ubb/icons/icon23.gif" alt=" - " />

[PYRO500]

I found a patent for the device. The link is below:

<a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F5503059" target="_blank">Vehicle disabling device and method </a>

[Tcell]

Just get an '85 F150 farmer package.... Great engine, lots of guts, and doesn't even have an FM RADIO electronics-wise.... it's pretty much invulnerable to electronic countermeasures.

[Energy84]

And if you had one of them, you wouldn't even need to worry about getting into a highspeed chase :p Besides, I think you'd have more worries driving a Ford <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> .
But seriously, if it's a gas engine, you're fucked because it still has an ignition system. Even with a diesel I don't think you'd have much of a chance because there is still a fuel pump that can get fried. Older ones will have mechanical pumps, I know, but there is still some sort of electrical system (you still have to turn a key right?). So once you're zapped, you'd most likely be SOL. Even if you had some sort of backup system that wasn't turned on at the time, with a 1000+ Amp jolt, I don't think there's much chance of anything surviving...

[Anthony]

From the patent, it seems that the weapon's primary means of attack is direct HV cap discharge to the vehicle's underside, and secondary through the EMP produced.

The designers intend it to knock out Electronic Engine Management systems, or send it into limp home mode by messing with its sensors.

Preference seems for it discharge on the underside of the engine, as the charge has to pass through wiring to get to the chassis. A lot of European cars built nowadays have plastic trays covering the bottom of the engine bay, to prevent oil drips. So it wouldn't work on these.

Also, I doubt this thing could dissable anything non-IC based. Fuel pumps, ignition systems (points), mechanical driven fuel injectors should be fine. Considering it's deemed highly unlikely to activate an electronic ignitor/blasting cap which is inside the vehicle.

Still, a 10+ (pre engine management) year old tubo diesel, with mechanical fuel pump should be bullet proof (not literally...)

Still, a plastic skirt on the back number would be the simplest and most reliable. It could be hinged up under the vehicle in normal use and realeased by solenoid or cable (sprung down) when needed. Being hinged or made of flexible material, it'd move upwards instead of getting ripped off my any bumps.

[Positive Electron]

Relateing to the Parking Radar thing, imagine if you could rig up some sort of trigger to that product, where once its triggered, some sort of a blocking impliment drops down from the car, and diverts the foward motion of the "torpedo".

I'm thinking some sort of wheeled block, that just hits the thing going 100 MPH, thus destroying it, and givng the police something to dodge, and at 80 MPH that could do some serious damage.

Or maybe, when you hear to rocket going off, you could turn your car, and it would just slam into your back wheel, and be destroyed.

[nbk2000]

How are you going to hear a rocket being fired at your ass while going 100MPH? And trying to do a bootleggers turn at even 50MPH is goiing to flip your car.