Researchers tout new counter-IED technology.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Improvised explosive devices control by sensors

On a Baghdad street corner, an Iraqi citizen spots insurgents planting an improvised explosive device. He quickly gets on his cell phone and uses an icon menu and the global positioning system chip inside to tell a command center what is going on.

No voice message is needed. No phone call from the operations center is returned.

The center dispatches a response team, and maybe, captures the insurgents while in the act.

Minutes later, as the informant approaches an illegal checkpoint, he quickly erases the software by hitting a couple buttons. The evidence that he is aiding coalition forces is zapped. He can easily download the software back in later.

The concept in this scenario is still just that--a concept. It is one of many in the ongoing fight to defeat the deadliest threat to coalition forces in Iraq--makeshift bombs.

"What we're talking about is a sensor network made up of people," said Wilson Engel III, senior acquisition specialist at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

The Local Eyes concept would be a way for the coalition to use the relatively robust cellular phone network in Iraq against insurgents, just as it has been used against coalition forces since the beginning of the conflict. There are about 7.1 million cell phones currently being used in Iraq, Engel said at an Institute for Defense and Government Advancement asymmetric warfare conference.

The technology is mature, Engel said. The joint operational command centers, where the informant would be calling, however, are not, he said. One has been set up in Mosul, but it has been under constant threat.

Local Eyes would have to use trusted sources, and an identity verification system, to prevent response teams from being set up for ambushes. There would also have to be some kind of way to reward users, such as cash deposits in a bank account, or free cell phone time, he added.

Engel is looking for sponsors to fund the concept. The infrastructure--the cell phone network--is already in place, he noted.

"This doesn't have to cost $50 million," he added.

Finding roadside bombs before they explode is the most important challenge of the counter-IED fight, military experts have said.

The naked eye can only tell the difference between a few colors. Hyperspectral sensors, which have been under development for more than a decade, can...