US Successfully Tests Self-Steering Bullets

mpicpp sends this report from The Independent: The United States Department of Defense has carried out what it says is its most successful test yet of a bullet that can steer itself towards moving targets. Experienced testers have used the technology to hit targets that were actively evading the shot, and even novices that were using the system for the first time were able to hit moving targets. The project, which is known as Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance weapon, or Exacto, is being made for the American government's military research agency, DARPA. It is thought to use small fins that shoot out of the bullet and re-direct its path, but the U.S. has not disclosed how it works. Technology in the bullet allows it to compensate for weather and wind, as well as the movement of people it is being fired at, and curve itself in the air as it heads towards its target.

Comments

Don't bother to duck and cover

[FreeUser]

I can shoot around corners now?! Sweet. Hello Cool World, here I come.

You can also be shot around corners. Welcome to "you don't stand a chance, Bub" world.

Re:Don't bother to duck and cover

[Dins]

Oh but we can't! We have to Bring You Democracy! Now with more Around Corner Shots!

Re:Cool world

[DarkOx]

They can shoot around corners, just like they can have a fully automatic belt feed large caliber gun. Good luck getting one of those for yourself unless its an antique.

If you think this technology is going to be something you or I get head over to the gun show and buy, you can put down your keys, it'll never happen.

So we can be shot around corners but we won't be shooting around them now or ever.

Not self directed but able to compensate

[Meshach]

According to the article the bullets are not "self directed" but able to compensate for factors that could change the direction like weather, wind, or movement of the target.

Re:Not self directed but able to compensate

[doomicon]

These are factors that a shooter would compute for long range shots (temp, wind, barom. pressure etc.) . So it's no surprise they're trying to simplify. So couple this with the autoscoping technoglogy, and I wonder what future sniper courses will look like, and will they continue to teach basics. Sorta reminds me when Army initially moved to GPS and started to lower the priority/importance of Map/Compass Land Navigation .

Obligatory clip from Fifth Element

[Mof-Tan]

Gary Oldman shows how it's done:
https://youtu.be/1Pb1Voc85ac

Wanted

[The Grim Reefer]

Don't you just need to swing a handgun before you fire it?

Oh, and get your heart to beat at 500 bpm, or something. ;-)

Re:Cool world

[Nidi62]

You already could. An Israeli defense firm designed a system that could fire Glocks and Uzis around a corner by the use of a folding "stock" and a camera/screen combination. It could also be fired regularly like a rifle.

It's the REPLAY BUTTON!

[EmagGeek]

Sweet! A Zorg invention coming to fruition. I like it!

Re:Cool world

[squiggleslash]

Yes I believe I saw some documentaries produced by Warner Brothers demonstrating this very technology, demonstrated by Doctors B. Bunny and E. Fudd.

Re:Small fins?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just babies. There are plenty of them -- it's really cold in Finland and what else is there to do on cold night?

Fins - probably not.

[willy_me]

More likely they slightly adjust the centre of gravity while the bullet is rotating. Adjusting the mass internally would be simpler and more reliable then fins.

Re:Fins - probably not.

[StikyPad]

This is the most information I could find. Maybe someone else can do better:

Design and Demonstration of a Guided Bullet for Extreme Precision Engagement of Targets at Long Range Performing for the DARPA Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program, the team developed a revolutionary .50 caliber bullet guidance system that will be used to produce the smallest, fastest, highest g projectile to date that is fully guided. To perform across a 70,000-g launch acceleration, they designed a first-of-a-kind, two-body bullet with a decoupled aft section that despins from 120,000 to 0 rpm in under 300 ms. This required the implementation of an innovative, alternator controlled, despun aft section that provides sufficient maneuverability but low drag for the bullet to remain supersonic out to maximum range.
The team worked within an 11-month time frame to deliver a system that exceeded all of the accuracy requirements across a variety of night- and daytime ranges, moving targets, wind speeds and directions, and other environmental conditions. The effort culminated in May with a physics and experimentally-based, fully integrated hardware- and software-in-the-loop demonstration that not only validated superior system performance, but also exceeded designated product requirements over all ranges and all target motion challenges. For this accomplishment, the program was recently awarded Phase II to continue the design and development of the guidance mechanics and electronics in collaboration with a commercial sponsor. The outstanding technical achievements demonstrated in the design, fabrication, simulation, and testing of this miniaturized guidance system are well-deserving of this award.

http://www.draper.com/Document... (page 109)

There's also a picture of a model that differs from those that appear in most other press releases.

From what I could find out, it looks like Draper Laboratories does the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (the interesting part), Teledyne does the optical target acquisition/locking (semi interesting), and Orbital ATK makes the ammunition part -- probably primer, charge, casing, and shell.

Semantics

[DumbSwede]

How can you not be "self directed" if you are compensating for "movement of the target". It has been given a target and actively modifying its flight profile in flight. There must be some intelligence and/or sensing and/or feedback to do this. Seems like an exercise in semantics to call it not-self-directed (at least in flight).

Is this a disclaimer to avoid getting these bullets confused with things like autonomous killbots? Though it is pretty easy to assume killbots will overwhelming choose these bullets as ammo :-)

Re:Cool world

[Lumpy]

"Good luck getting one of those for yourself unless its an antique."

Not a problem at all In fact they are rather easy to get.

Step 1 join army.
Step 2 Pass basic
Step 3 Get M60 issued to you.
Step 4 PROFIT!

Re:Cool world

[dissy]

This instantly reminded me of an 80's movie called Runaway with Tom Selleck, who is a part of a special task force to hunt down and destroy malfunctioning "runaway" robots.

Their handguns could lock on a target and program the bullets just before firing to stay on their target, although they looked more like miniature rocket based missiles with their own tiny engines and guidance fins.

I remember a number of the larger scenes giving a bullet-point-of-view type thing as the target goes running away and try to evade the shots by going around corners and obstacles, even purposely missing other people, before embedding into their target and exploding.

http://xirdalium.net/2012/02/1...

The above link has a picture of the bullet from this movie, and even goes on about a real prototype from Sandia National Laboratories back in 2012

https://share.sandia.gov/news/...

I wonder how much these two groups worked together on these.

Re:Here _I_ come?

[TwoEyedJack]

I can shoot around corners now?! Sweet. Hello Cool World, here I come.

No. This will be military only technology. Us citizens are still going to be stuck with 19th or earlier century firearm technology.

But we still do have the right to bear arms - as antiquated as they are.

Actually, the only difference between the M4 (standard issue to US military) and the clone you buy at Cabelas is a three-round burst mode. That is unless you live in repressive states like NY, CA, and MD. Then you have to deal with stupidities like funky stocks, dysfunctional magazine eject buttons, smaller magazines, etc. to please the hoplophobes.

Re:Cool world

[Lumpy]

You are 100% incorrect. Buddy of mine spent 6 years in Afghanistan with a M60 issued to him and never had any of that happen to him.

Whatever it takes...

[joerdie]

...to kill more brown people in the desert...

Yay!

[DogDude]

I'm so proud that the US government will spare no amount of time, effort, or money in developing new ways to kill people. Killing people is much more important than health, education, social services, and the non-war economy.

Re:Yay!

[DogDude]

Right, it sucks that they had to close all the schools, in order to afford this :(

You're right. It does. That's my point.

Re:Here _I_ come?

[tsotha]

This is for super-long-range sniper fire. Criminals don't have any need for this kind of weapon - when the mob wants to assassinate you they put a gun right up against your mellon and empty the magazine.

It is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Greater accuracy means fewer accidental casualties. It also means faster, more decisive military victories. I am pretty happy we got this technology before any of the real monsters did.

If this tech frightens you, the best way you can protect yourself from it is to stay politically active, and keep your government accountable. Don't weaken your military forces, keep them under observation and focused on the right targets. You can't stop the march of technology, nor can you legislate threats away. All you can do is make sure tech is used properly and only against real threats.

Re:It is awesome.

[arglebargle_xiv]

It isn't straight awesome, it's an awesomely expensive techno-toy that'll end up like Excalibur rounds, where you practically need a written order from the president every time you fire one because they're so exotic and expensive. The damn things get delivered in private jets by a butler carrying them on a silk cushion, and there's more brass than gunners standing around when they're used. Given that for the cost of a single $80,000 Excalibur you could get an entire battery to carpet the area with $500 M107's, and then carpet five more targets and still not equal the cost of the one Excalibur, they are at best fancy technology demonstrators/toys. Now scale that down to whatever this thing will be called when it's deployed in 5-10 years time and you're still better off using a 5-10-round burst (with 4,990 rounds left to spare for the cost of one of the trick rounds) than using one of these toys.

(And before the first person leaps in to say "yeah, but give it time and they'll get cheaper", these things never get cheaper, for every development cycle they have more crap larded onto them so that, at best, the cost remains more or less constant, although more frequently it tends to go up).

Cute toy though...

Re:It is awesome.

[currently_awake]

The purpose of this is sniping. You don't want to fire half a dozen rounds when sniping as that gives away your position. Also you can make the rounds sub sonic, so they don't make that loud crack sound from the sonic boom without reducing accuracy. Note that this will require the shooter to remain sighted on the target until the round hits, in order to guide the bullet to target, as there is no practical way to put long range sensors in a bullet.

Re:Cool world

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Mock it as you may. The Germans did actually develop an attachment during WWII that allowed such a thing. It would usually shatter the bullet but for tank crews this didn't matter much as it basically became a shotgun at close range when trying to shoot the guy trying to stick an explosive to your tanks treads.

Re:Here _I_ come?

[TheCarp]

This, and so much this for just about every gun related cry for regulation.

I keep seeing people talk about high capacity magazines, assault rifles etc etc every time gun violence comes up. Oh we need to ban this, we need to background check that.... never mind that they are whipping themselves up into a froth about the least common categories of gun violence.

  In the end, real crime, even the real heinous shit, tends to be done with either hand guns or hand held melee weapons. Almost nobody uses rifles for crimes, more hammers are used to kill than rifles....all rifles, assault or otherwise....but nearly every gun control nutter I talk seems to think every gun owners secret dream is to carry around an AK-47 all day.

In fact, so far the only real connection between gun laws and crime is, places with crime problems tend to make more gun laws as a result.... which doesn't do shit about their crime problems. The whole issue is only popular because its an easy sound bite "solution", you know, the kind that "always work" like banning drugs.