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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."
Right into the path of another bullet. Or a truck. Or an electric fence. etc.
I get so much shit thrown at me at the daycare everyday I could really use this.
I'd be most interested in seeing a YouTube clip of it trying to avoid a hail of bullets fired from different angles.
I wouldn't want to be wearing it in that scenario.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
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.
That doesn't mean you can make it work in 10 years or less.
I guess we should be patenting everything we can possibly think of, now. Sigh.
While this seems like a great way to protect an unarmed VIP (as seems to be the intent), it seems like it'd be a little bit problematic when installed in the armor of a soldier in the field. This seems like it could be more dangerous than beneficial in such circumstances, unless you also apply a number of safety precautions. What if the wearer is already firing or moving? Will it be smart enough to detect preexisting movement? Will it be smart enough to disable the wearer's firearm, in the event that he is already firing at another target?
Probably the lamest idea ever. Long range sniper kills of this type represent an insignificant minority of deaths, they really think people are going to wear this crap?
The detection method sounds flaky and lame. What I would pay to see though is the other side create an 'electromagnetic' interference device that causes this armor to 'stimulate' the wearer to dive into a brick wall or something.
This reminds me of something I read here recently about meteor strikes on Earth. Basically, we can only map about 0.001% of the sky per day or something small, and there are so many potential meteors out there we may never see that we may just die in our sleep tonight. How could body armor see all the potential trajectories of a bullet, scan them, and react all within a fraction of a second? While the longest bullet travel was 4 seconds, I would imagine that most successful sniper attacks are less, and armor doesn't exactly have eyes. Maybe I should read the article?
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Finally! Now everyone will be able to fight Agents and not just that hack Keanu.
Woah!
You can't take the sky from me.
The vast majority of sniper rounds are super sonic. (the speed of sound is only about 1,100 ft/s)
So the bullet will hit it's target before the sound wave warning has arrived
So the armor emits an electromagnetic signal that can detect, instantly, the movement of a bullet, can calculate the trajectory of said bullet, and somehow ensure that the user is warned enough to move out of the way of the bullet. In the example that they give, the bullet is traveling at 625 meters per second, the size of a bullet coming from a typical sniper rifle is very small. So this armor can detect, say the size of a small marble, from 2500 meters away?
Assuming that this armor can perfect and accurately detect incoming small arms projectiles and warn the user in time, how can the armor know the ground terrain that the wearer has to physically negotiate? Say the person is standing in two feet of snow, or in sand in the desert, perhaps the person is in two feet of water, or they are walking down stairs? The armor requires the user to be an acrobat from what I can tell. And no matter what, unless the armor can fully mobilize the wearer and move them automatically, this system still leaves room for grave human error, meaning it's hardly reliable.
And won't people figure out a way to beat the armor, or beat the system. Imagine a sniper rifle that fires a decoy bullet, that knocks the target down (as he evades the first bullet) and puts the armor wearer in a prone position on the ground, making him or her easy to target. Or perhaps a decoy bullet is shot from one barrel and the real bullet follows in a pre-calculated trajectory requiring no manual aiming for the sniper. Perhaps a bullet can be made undetectable to the electromagnetic pulse that the armor gives off. Maybe the armor can be jammed? You fire a bullet with an electromagnetic pulse destabilizer and then pick off your target when the armor fails.
I should mention that I live like three or four miles from IBM's headquarters in the Hudson Valley, so I hope they let my friends who work there bring in their buddies (or just me) for some live fire demonstrations where we can snipe at blowup dolls wearing million dollar armor with some high tech rifles.
simulates projectiles in a manner which causes the aforementioned bullet-dodging armor to deliver stimulus which directs it's wearer to repeatedly and fatally strike him or herself in the genitals.
I predict this to be added to the hague conventions in short order.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
This is what happens when a company pays its employees for each successful patent, and when employees are even told to put patent applications in their yearly personal objectives, which affect their annual bonuses. You end up with employees spending a large chunk of their work week filing for patents on any random idea that enters their head, no matter how impractical, obvious, or unrelated to the company's actual research and development.
So if I make a patent of a device that detects incoming sniper bullets, wouldn't IBMs patent be useless without buying mine?
But there are several obstacles which I can't see being solved within the next decade or two (I'm being optimistic):
First of all, there's accuracy. You don't want your VIP actually walking to intercept the bullet.
Second, size. If your radar is so precise as to detect a bullet even 500 yards away, it's gotta be pretty big.
Related to this, there's energy. For an awesome radar (or anything else) like that, you'd need big-ass batteries, and/or to recharge every couple of hours. Especially in battle, this would be a no-go.
Finally, if they claim that this is really for VIP's under high risk of an assassination attempt, and not for military/police, then the device would probably have to be invisible. I don't think Obama or Bill Gates wants to walk around with a huge thingamajig on his head (remember "Child abduction is not funny"?).
Seriously, I don't know if it's a good idea to give somebody a patent for an idea if they haven't addressed so many key issues.
weinersmith
Since bullets typically travel faster than sound, you first get hit by the bullet, and then you get an electric shock on top of that. What fun.
What will those IBM guys patent next?
IBM Files Patent For Bullet-Dodging Bionic Armor
Reading that title, I got a mental image of body armor sensing incoming bullets and dodging them by jumping off of the wearer.
So, it is armor, that dodges the bullets when they are heading for your body. Um, wouldn't the armor work best when it is BETWEEN me and the lead projectile?
We can build the first 700 Billion dollar man. Da da-da da! Da da da da da da da da daahh
The sniper was Canadian, so I'm pretty sure the armour wouldn't have saved the target in the long run. The sniper was told that the guy he killed was responsible for blowing up ten skids of imported microbrewery beer. If the rifle didn't work, that sniper would have run down there with a dull, rusty spoon, cut the guy's balls off and beaten him to death with them.
It's the Canadian Way.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I thought, that's how breakdance was invented?
-- Watch me working: www.magerquark.de
... $20M stealth bullets that have the radar signature of a mosquito. Yay!
With battle field lasers being available now, it needs to have a quantum entanglement detector to operate. This also requires the IBM time machine to be really effective. The nice thing it is so futuristic it has an open source time machine operating system.
Or do they actually have something? Personally I don't see it working that well. A system that detects where the fire comes from and automatically returns fire with a sniper round, or an RPG, would be much bigger deterrent IMO.
Shampoo is working for IBM!!
...in a world where leaders are not usually known for their dance steps.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
circuit...
A bolting child of Oh Big Blue,
Melting into a mound of goo,
Sizzling, hopping, and spewing doo,
Settling, calming, as flies go "OOOOH"
Guided, misguided into fire,
The circuit boards fry in the pyre,
A life whose fate is down to wire,
So NOW Big Blue what will you sire?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
...will it work with thrown shoes?
something to upgrade my baby armor with!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
The troopers run in Big Blue's ARMOR
With glint and sprint each one's a CHARMER
In humid climes the suit's a WARMER
They are no match for pick-axe FARMER
Be brave and stout and dodge rounds nearby
A jig you dance cuz rounds fly on by
But whizz your pants-the round hit you guy
Oh now you know - bionics can fry
(there is a store-all in this more, and there's a moral to this story)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Who's the modern day equivalent of the nazi's? shouldn't ibm follow suit and sell to the bush administrat.. oh wait.
I guess the novel part of this is to buld a taser into the mechanism - though, I would expect most politicians would prefer to take a bullet than to crap themselves in public as a result of the shocks they receive.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"Boris the Blade? As in Boris the Bullet-Dodger?"
"Why do they call him the Bullet-Dodger?"
"'Cause he dodges bullets, Avi."
Why is almost everyone (so far) fixating on BULLETS?
Hell, if I had an army or some resisting force being assaulted by troops in armor, i'd set up IEDs, nuts and bolts, flame-throwers, and bouncing betty-type combinations of devices. Neck, face and limb armor will negate ANY head and upper body armor. As long as you set up confusion, sheer horror, and profuse bleeding, any army will spend an inordinate amount of time collecting casualties for triage. At some point, body bags going home will (ideally) cause resistance to more bodies coming home.
Also, for close-quarter combat, IMPROVISE. Set up spring-loaded, stud-fitted poles at neck, chest and shin level. Anyone walking into those traps will be one un-pretty fucked up individual. If you are defending YOUR TURF, i don't give a damn what country you are from, you have EVERY RIGHT to whack the shit out of intruders, and, morally, i support you. The point of war and combat should be to reduce war and combat, not create blind or programmed "rah rah rah".
Besides, much armor can be a death trap if the shit set ablaze, and made useless if penetrated in a concentrated area more than once. Without field replacements, anyone shot more than 3 or 4 times has got to be asking the Dirty Harry question: "Do I feel LUCKY?"
But, nevermind all that. Napalm for up close and personal, and microwave cooking for out to 50 yards, and distributed cluster bombs for random psychological dissuasion. Hell, in Afghanistan, heavily booby-trapped fields became so untrustworthy and costly to clear that the British (IIRC, it was British) just paved their own way through farm land and only THEN did they trust the road's safety agains "insurgents".
I am hoping this armor is not being paid for out the the "stimulus" package. IBM has enough money that they should pay for it themselves and recoup costs on sales -- as long as the cost is not burdensome to the Taxpayers. Besides, this is probably going to turn out to be more for pacifying troops psychologically than to actually be protective. All protection is just some layer in a larger near-local system. Senses, sharing information, and choosing to avoid catastrophe can go a long way in obviating a dependency on armor. But, since people are going to follow orders rather than be shot for cowardice in the face of an enemy...
But, at first, when i read the OP/summary, i immediately flashed forward thinking this would be like Chobham armor, or some kind of reactive armor that predetonates just before impact, so as to lessen the shock to the person under the armor. But, the effects would be as disorienting from inside the armor as from outside.
It might look ludicrous, but maybe they should just run together under a huge, deflector shield -- everyone carrying/shouldering their 3 pounds of transparent Kevlar, with the dirt skirt about 5 inches above ground. Now, if they could just program the TKDS to match the surroundings, IBM might be on to a better product. Unfortunately, though, anyone getting a few frag grenades under that skirt will turn that TKDS into a "dome of doom" with all that shrapnel creating "Hamburger Helper". Once the death dome hits the ground and stops moving, the enemy would redirect fire to entomb the next set of rolly-pollies...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
That I can dodge bullets? Or that when I'm ready, I won't have to?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
A bullet is a very very small target for any radar to detect, even with very sensitive equipment. However something moving at 1000m/s is a very distinct doppler rader signature, wich makes it MUCH easier to detect. From there this is plausible.
It's just a patent, it doesn't represent any actual project planned and certainly is no waste of bailout/stimulous package money.
I for one welcom such advances, as some day our troops will be wearing exoskeletons which may be able to make movements for the wearer - this is a step towards the machine revolution, where we are all anhiliated by robotic exoskeletons where the human is either dead or no longer has control... oh crap.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
If all you want to do is kill, then yeah, maybe. We don't have the technology for it, but in the long run you could probably pull it off. You'd lose a lot of situational awareness, and have various other issues to overcome, but it might be worthwhile anyway.
Thing is, such machines would be fairly useless in a conflict like the current wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. You can't send a robot to check on shop owners, play with kids, share cigarettes and gossip with the local soldiers/police, and sit in on tribal meetings. Somehow I can't see the locals inviting a robot in for tea.
You could use them to augment combat missions - they'd be GREAT for room-clearing - but you're still going to need real people for most of your other work. Which means you still need all that other junk to protect your people, so you're not saving any money.
I'm sure people like Bill Gates would have paid for something that would detect and intercept incoming pies. They're a more credible threat for a well funded and high profile market.
Once the sniper knows there is a reaction to their action, they could try to make the wearer jump off roofs, under moving tanks, etc.
At the very least, it would be difficult to return fire when you have a spasmodic fit whenever the bad guy shoots a couple rounds at you.
Could lead to friendly fire incidents.
"Sorry Joe, the sniper made me do it!"
Unless it's subsonic projectile, the target is hit before he can hear the gunshot.
Frankly, this seems like technological overkill to me. Instead, why not just deck yourself out in ceramic and kevlar? Available _now_, less expensive, no power required, and it protects against all bullets, supersonic or no. Better still, a good suit will protect against a stick of dynamite at several metres' distance. Let's see this fancy armour dodge _that_.
Had this kind of armour a long time ago in diablo II. Dodging arrows, but that is not different. Crow Caw Tigulated Mail has +15 to dexterity, and a higher defense rating.
But typically you woul add dexterity to a helmet, not to the body armour...
(is this prior art?)
A slow bullet, so the enemy would not need a special armor or suit. The bullet will need about ten seconds for the way from the rifle to the target. It doesn't matter how near or far the target is. Ten seconds is programmed into the bullet, so anybody has plenty of time to get out of the way, if he or she don't want to get hit. I'll get rich!!!
They are starting a joint venture with Tazer International. /You will duck and twitch.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Michael, i have detected an incoming sniper bullet with subsonic speed arriving in 2 seconds and coming from south direction. Should i activate the ultraprotection or do you want to use the turbo boost? TURBO BOO
This is...impressive, but unfortunately, the laser-guided bullet has also been invented. The spotter points a laser beam at the target while all the sniper has to do is fire a bullet. The bullet then changed its direction towards the laser point. Try dodging that =)
Article.
Patent.
Ray Winninger's UnderGround, c 1993 MayFair Games.
More specifically: "Fully Strapped, Always Packed: Gats and Gear from the UnderGround" by Mitch Gitelman, c 1993 MayFair Games.
From "Fully Strapped, Always Packed, page 83-84":
Geneve Dodge-Man
Dodge-Man is Geneve's entry into the conflict software market. Essentially a tool to combat Pueblo's Firefight!, Dodge-Man is billed as the ultimate 'First Alert' system, linking the Punkbuster radar detector (and other brands,) a "Lockout" laser-sight system foiler, adn a patented electrode system. Before leaving a place of safety, the user ocvers her body in adhesive electrodes. She then covers her body in Heavykev and/or MONDO armors as usual. When confronted by a positive lock from Pueblo Sniper! or Firefight!, Dodge-Man fires a small electrical charge into the epidermis of the wearer. This "buzz" alerts the user to incoming ifre and indicates the targeted area, allowing the user to get a jump on her dodge.
Running the program gives the user +2 to her Acrobatics/Dodge Specialty. It will take some time to get used to the muscle spasm/immediate movement component of the system. Most veterans practice several times with empty magazines to get the feel of the software.
Emphasis mine.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I suppose it can hear the sound of the sniper's finger tendon tightening?
So: 1x sniper 1x bionic body armour outfit 1x high calibre sniper rifle I don't know, it sounds like a really expensive way to lose weight when you can just get one of those things for around your waist.
The original article hints at its own counter-measure. If you aim at the head or other extremity, it's easy to move it out of the way with a simple muscle contraction.
But if instead the shooter aims at the target's center of gravity, it's much harder to move that.
Not much point in a device that can be so easily countered.
Is detecting a bullet once fired even practical? A typical rifle bullet travels between approximately 700 m/s to 1000m/s.
Assuming a 1000 m/s bullet, like a 50BMG or 338LM, if a sniper is positioned 2km away, it will take 2 seconds for the round to reach the target. 1km, 1 second.
Problem is that most sniper engagements are not at extreme long ranges. Most occur between 275-550 meters. That means a quarter to a half a second.
That is not enough time to get out of the way of a typical bullet, even if your reaction is instantaneous.
For body guards wearing such armor, the reaction should be the opposite.
How about armor that can just take the bullets over then something that needs batterys and other high tech stuff that can be easy to breakdown in combat.
CIA uses 3 shooters (Back... and to the left). Impossible unless you are The One.
Why limit the reason for having reactive body armor to avoiding incoming projectiles? If you create a body-covering platform that can sense the environment and react to it, you might as well complete the job and have them act as an ad-hoc network, such as the ones in the recent story about the placeable cookie-sized units. Other areas of military readiness would start piling on, too. But like all tech, there's also the risks inherent in such a system, like the one I explored in a story I wrote called 'Infantry Hack'. It starts like this...
+ + +
"If you don't back off right now, I'll tighten your LifeSkin tourniquet the rest of the way. You know I can do it!"
That's Edgar Brannock screaming in my earbud. He's been rocking back and forth behind that grimy warehouse window over there for the past ten minutes. See the glowing smudge in the infra-red overlay of my gunsight? Yeah. That's him. For someone responsible for a major terror attack on New York, you'd think he'd be geek enough to know not to yell at a bugged window.
"I'm not going anywhere, Edgar."
Cripes. Why do these jerks always have to be so melodramatic? It's not like I haven't noticed the auto-constriction band digging into my arm. Targetting someone with something as fuzzy as an IR overlay is hard enough when you can feel your fingers, but doing it with purple sausages is a real thrill. And telling me to back off? Give me a break. They've even given up using that tired ploy in the movies.
"How's you're arm? There are lots of other constriction bands in that thing you're wearing, you know. Want a demo?"
= = =
You can read the whole story (and lots of others) at my short story blog, here:
http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/short-story-infantry-hack/
P. Orin Zack
I hope they can get some prototypes built and fielded sometime soon.
All other factors ignored, that's just way cool.
Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
Because long range snipers aren't trained to take that sort of physics into account when shooting at targets over a kilometer away.
Would be to use this new awesome bullet sensing and trajectory calculating technology claim to have, and attach it to a big gun instead of a soldier. Since the technology is capable of knowing where the bullet it going, reverse the calculation, and figure out where it came from. Then just kill the sniper. In this manner the mission of the sniper become obsolete. If the enemy knew that every time a sniper fired a round he was probably going to die, it all becomes a moot point because no one does it anymore. In the asymmetric wars we fight today we always have more troops, so the 1 to 1 kill rate this technology would create would generate unacceptable loses to the enemy.
Dude, you can't dodge death.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
From the patent application as quoted in TFA:
"Based on the foregoing, there exists a need for an improved system and method for protecting an individual against the potential damage caused by being impacted by a projectile propelled from a firearm."
That's patent-attorney-speak for getting shot.
Great! Now the president can grab someone's boob in public and claim the suit propelled his arm.
My take is that the system is comprised of a light weight "suit" for the VIP, separate detectors, and a control module that analyzes the data and signals the suit.
False positives would really annoy the VIP and cause lots of consternation with the VIP's security force disrupting whatever was going on. I don't think that videos showing the VIP suddenly jerking to one side would be welcome publicity. And false negatives?
Nate
...and that's when he stepped in the path of the tank. We'll miss him.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Third world countries aren't going to have such advanced sniper rifles that fire two bullets at a time.
However, they could just have two snipers right next to each other, trained on the same target. One fires and makes the target lay/fall down. The second fires and doesn't miss.
Does this remind anyone else of the book, "Moving Mars"? In that book the user has a small pouch of nanobots. A sniper fires a bullet, the pouch detects it and instantly spreads around the VIP's body, then moves itself in a motion that causes the wearer to dodge the bullet and hardens itself in the direction of the incoming bullet. Basically matrix style dodging caused by nanobots shoving you around. Great book btw.
Maybe there are some good intentions behind this, but... Oh, dear, I can only see this being used for bad jokes. I mean, remember how people would get their jollies by repeatedly pouncing on cars with the "this car has an alarm system, your are too close, please stand back" car alarm? Hey, let's try to beat on this guy to make him jolt around!
This sounds like a very bad idea to me. But I might be wrong.
Soldiers expect to be facing death, even death by horrible torture. There is no training in the world that will withstand the threat of death by being punched in the cock.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
No, Neo. It means you won't *have* to.
I wonder how this will fare against shotguns...
will probably buy some of these if its functionality is reversed: detect a projectile then move _into_ the line of the fire.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't