REAL LIFE NEWS: STEERABLE BULLET IS A REALITY
by Hazed
Fire a gun, and chances are you’ll miss your target. Even highly trained snipers are at the mercy of wind and weather, target movement and extreme distance which can stop them being able to perform a perfect hit.
So wouldn’t it be great to have a technological solution? How about a bullet that can be steered towards its target after it has been fired?
The US government thinks that would be a very useful thing to have, so it’s put the military boffins of DARPA to work to develop a steerable bullet. Last week, they released a video showing their prototype in action. It’s called EXACTO (EXtreme aCuracy Tasked Ordinance – yes, it’s a bit of a tortured acronym).
EXACTO can be fired from a standard rifle and then manoeuvred during its flight so it can hit a target that is not directly in line with where the rifle was aimed. The DARPA team explains, “EXACTO’s specially designed ammunition and real-time optical guidance system help track and direct projectiles to their targets by compensating for weather, wind, target movement and other factors that could impede successful hits.” The video shows two bullets fired and then steered towards the target – one of them has its course corrected twice while in flight.
The aim of the project is to increase the range that snipers can operate at. The current record distance for a .50-cal round is 1.54 miles, set in 2010.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/11/darpa_shows_off_first_successful_test_of_steerable_bullet/
