IBM Files Patent For Bullet-Dodging Bionic Armor

An anonymous reader writes with news that IBM has filed a patent for "Bionic body armor" that would protect a wearer from long-range gunfire by detecting the incoming bullets and administering small shocks to the appropriate muscles required for moving out of the way. Quoting the patent: "When a marksman (such as a sniper) is attempting to fire a projectile from a firearm, the marksman typically prefers to be as far away from the target as possible, thus giving him or her a head start for the escape after the firing. As an example, the longest reported sniper hit was from a distance of about 2500 meters, resulting in a time of flight of about 4 seconds for the projectile/bullet. Had the target been aware of the inbound projectile, avoiding it by simply walking away would have been possible." After detecting the projectile, the armor would calculate the trajectory and "stimulate the target to move in a predefined manner ... sufficient to avoid any contact with the approaching projectile."

Comments

Mechanism of detection?

[tenco]

I wonder how they want to detect an approaching projectile. By sound wouldn't give really much of a head start. Anyway, detecting a projectile, calculating an approximate flight path and stimulating including biomechanical lag would have to happen in a really short period of time.

Re:Mechanism of detection?

[jcr]

I wonder how they want to detect an approaching projectile.

Millimeter-wave radar would do fine, as long as the bullet was metallic. I've read about another idea for protecting people from gunfire which was a radar-triggered airbag that would pop up if anything within a hundred feet or so was moving too fast. The air bag would be made of kevlar, and the a bullet hitting it would stop like an arrow hitting a curtain.

-jcr

Re:Great - Throw 'em around during a firefight

[repvik]

If the wearer is about to pull the trigger on his M72 LAW when someone fires a rifle at him, do you think it's a Good Idea (TM) to jerk the person around?

Without the suit, you WILL be hit by a bullet.
WITH the suit, you MIGHT accidentally blow up your whole team.

Re:Stimulate to move...

[dotancohen]

And the ceramic body armour breaks after only one bullet. After that you are on your own.

Actually, the plates generally in use by NATO nations are designed to stop up to 3 hits from 7.62 rounds. Now, granted "designed to" doesn't mean they will, but if you're suggesting that the plate is useless after only one hit from a 5.56 round, then you're just plain wrong.

Fortunately, I've never actually been hit with either a 5.56 or a 7.62 myself. But I've seen people get hit, and I'm not sure if there were multiple hits on the same plate or not. In Lebanon two years ago we couldn't even exchange our equipment for two weeks, and I wasn't keeping score of who was getting hit or where (front, back). But I can attest that no one was seriously injured by a bullet through the armour. I should probably mention that we were absorbing a nice mix of 5.56 (M16), 7.62 short (AK47) and 5.54 (AK74) rounds (and the occasional mortar or RPG!).