Pentagon eyes breakthrough binoculars

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has awarded $6.7 million in seed money to try to develop binoculars that would tap a user's brain waves to home in on threats, Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) said on Monday.

The company said it was leading an academic and industry consortium assembled for the project, known as the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System program, or CT2WS.

The plan features a custom helmet equipped with electrodes placed on the scalp to record neural responses to the presence or absence of potential threats, Los Angeles-based Northrop said in a statement.

The brain's input would "train the system's algorithms, which will continue to be refined over time so that the warfighter is always presented with items of relevance to his mission," the statement said.

The contract was awarded by the Defense Advanced Projects Agency, or DARPA, a Pentagon arm that acts as a cradle of new technology for use by the U.S. military.

The goal is to detect enemy forces and vehicles over ranges of one to 10 kilometers while surveying a 120-degree or greater field of view, according to documents on DARPA's Web site.

"At the same time we must look at the projected size, weight and power of the notional system to determine if the capabilities we are aiming for can be constrained into something fieldable by our military," Jan Walker, a DARPA spokeswoman, said in an emailed reply to questions.

Neither Northrop nor the military provided precise details on how the project might work if put into operation.

After the project's initial 12-month, $6.7 million stage, DARPA has the option to extend the contract for two more phases to develop the subsystems and a final prototype of portable assemblies.

"A prototype is not a product, so if we are three years away from a prototype we might be five years or more away from a device that might be considered a product," Walker said.

Northrop Grumman said it was striving for "persistent surveillance" in the system to give early notice of any enemy "move-stop-move tactics."

If and when deployed, such a system could play a role in such things as force protection, defeating roadside bombs, border surveillance and other advanced military and homeland defense applications, the company said.

Its multi-disciplinary team includes Science Applications International Corp (SAI.N) and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc (LLL.N) as well as Georgia Institute of Technolgy, Atlanta, Georgia. (Reporting by Jim Wolf; editing by Carol Bishopric)