DARPA is known for out-there technologies. Now it has awarded Lockheed a contract to develop aerial vehicles that detect anomalous gravity signatures:
Lockheed Martin has received a $4.8 million, 12-month contract to create a prototype sensor that spots, categorizes and maps man-made facilities concealed underground. And does it all from the safety of the sky, embedded in a drone and linked to cameras that’d stream the data in real-time.
Pentagon blue sky R&D arm, Darpa, is behind this one. Last year, the agency’s Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure (GATE) program sought proposals for a system that used a gradiometer to measure miniscule variations in the pull of gravity. Those variations detect differences in the earth’s density, indicating underground space. And the sensors would even be attuned enough to “discriminate a man-made void from naturally-occurring features such as topography and geology,” according to Lockheed’s press release.
I’d think it would be hard enough to detect a mountain from its gravity signature.