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DARPA Awards Lockheed Martin $3.9M Contract to Develop Advanced Rifle Scope for Soldiers
Lockheed Martin ^ | 5/26/2010 | Lockheed Martin

Posted on 05/26/2010 8:17:49 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Lockheed Martin a $3.93 million contract to develop a rifle-scope attachment to enhance soldiers’ marksmanship capabilities.

The Dynamic Image Gunsight Optic or DInGO system will enable soldiers to accurately view targets at varying distances without changing scopes or suffering a decrease in optical resolution. The system will enhance soldiers’ ability to accurately hit targets at a range of between three and 600 meters.

DInGO automatically calculates the range with a low power laser rangefinder, digitally zooms in on it and accounts for environmental conditions such as wind using sensors built into the scope. It then projects the bullet’s point-of-impact calculated from the embedded ballistics computer.

“Current scopes are optimized for a single target range, impacting soldiers’ effectiveness and survivability when engaging targets at different distances during a single mission,” said Dan Schultz, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems & Sensors Ship & Aviation Systems business. “DInGO will solve this problem, significantly increasing soldiers’ ability to rapidly reconfigure optics for use from short to long ranges and improving marksmanship capabilities for all soldiers.”

DInGO is based on Lockheed Martin’s One Shot Advanced Sighting System, which utilizes similar precision engagement technology to automatically transmit crosswind information to a long-range sniper’s scope and modify the crosshairs to display exactly where the bullet will strike.

DARPA awarded Lockheed Martin an 18-month, $9.7 million contract in 2008 to integrate One Shot’s new crosswind measurement technology into a prototype spotter scope – a small telescope that is carried by sniper teams and is used to bring far-away objects into close view. During tactical field tests in December 2009, snipers were able to engage targets twice as quickly and increase their probability of a first-round hit by a factor of two using the One Shot

(Excerpt) Read more at lockheedmartin.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: banglist; darpa; laser; lockheedmartin; m16; m4; marksmanship; rifle; riflescope; scope; ustroops
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To: astyanax

mark


21 posted on 05/26/2010 10:24:28 PM PDT by astyanax (Liberalism: Logic's retarded cousin.)
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To: sonofstrangelove
Odd. I have a non-battery powered scope that checks range like a 35mm camera lens. You adjust the focus (split ring) and when focus, you read the range.

Not as accurate tot he knatsass of a LASER interferometer, but good enuf for my DOPE cards. Works OK for me all the way out to the 350 yd line at the local range.

I had thought of buying a Mil/MIl scope or even a Mil/MoA - Still have the thought, still saving.

Anyone out there currently using a stadiametric rangefinding scope - other than an ART scope?

This is all hypothetical, of course....

22 posted on 05/26/2010 10:26:25 PM PDT by ASOC (Things are not always as they appear, ask the dog chasing the car)
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To: ASOC

What happens when the battery runs out of the DINGO?


23 posted on 05/26/2010 11:29:57 PM PDT by Frohickey
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To: Frohickey
What happens when the battery runs out of the DINGO?

Replace it?

24 posted on 05/27/2010 2:36:07 AM PDT by Pontiac
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To: Frohickey

There goes the LASER rangefinder, autodrop compensator etc etc.

OTOH, the avg sniper does use a high rate of fire, so why the big deal on “twice as fast”?


25 posted on 05/27/2010 7:31:18 AM PDT by ASOC (Things are not always as they appear, ask the dog chasing the car)
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To: sonofstrangelove
I enjoy having technical challenges -- as in how to measure wind deflection!

As I was waking up this AM,, it occurred to me that using something like the Laser Guide Star concept -- as used in adaptive optics for astronomy -- might work.

My guess is that Rayleigh scattering (rather than sodium excitation) might work -- especially if short wavelengths and short pulses were employed.

I can see several possibilities. Hmmm -- might be a patent in there, somewhere...

26 posted on 05/27/2010 8:37:05 AM PDT by TXnMA
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To: Frohickey; ASOC

Keeping our troops supplied with batteries for all their portable gizmos is already a significant logistics effort. If this employs a common battery already in the supply system, it would only mean a slight increase in acquisition volume.


27 posted on 05/27/2010 8:42:15 AM PDT by TXnMA
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To: sonofstrangelove
DInGO automatically calculates the range with a low power laser rangefinder,

Next up, an inexpensive laser detector that sounds an alarm when the rangefinder illuminates you (the target).

28 posted on 05/27/2010 8:47:02 AM PDT by justlurking (The only remedy for a bad guy with a gun is a good WOMAN (Sgt. Kimberly Munley) with a gun)
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