DARPA: Shotgun/Airdrop Deployed ad hoc camera system

What if your 12 gauge could fire mini-cameras, instead of buckshot? The question crossed Pentagon-funded researchers' minds, as they looked for a new way for the military to keep watch over cities.
More...


This is pretty cool! They are creating cameras that can withstand being shot out of a shotgun and getting stuck to a wall and then they can set up an ad hoc network themselves. It can then be access by a computer off the shelves with a PCMCIA slot. They have tested them

Here are some more excerpts from Wired: Danger Room
After a few years in development, Defense News reports, the first of these eyes from the ELASTIC ("Expendable Local Area Sensors in a Tactically Interconnected Cluster") program are now being rolled out. And some of them are surprisingly rugged -- rugged enough to get shot.
...
“One thing we briefly looked at was delivering an image sensor by bullet,” Cormack said. “The bullet would be designed to decelerate the sensor on impact [by crushing], and leave the camera stuck to a wall, say, by a spike. It’s kind of mind-boggling to imagine setting up a sensor net by machine gun.”
...
The Israeli military experimented with a similar concept a while back -- except the Sabras' camera was grenade-sized. Air Force-backed contractors are examining sensors that can follow bullets in mid-flight.

So they have already tested these impacting at terminal velocity. They should be able to be shot into the wall with a spike that would hold it there without destroying the camera and give them eyes before they go around a corner. Follow this link and check it all out, it is pretty exciting, for me at least. You have to subscribe to Defense News to read the original post so good luck there.

~Wired: Danger Room < Gizmodo & Engadget