It was six years ago when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency kicked off its highly-classified program to develop what essentially amounts to guided bullets. And now, it’s for real.
DARPA’s Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance program — known as EXACTO —conducted the first successful live-fire tests demonstrating in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets. While less than mind-blowing, the video shows EXACTO rounds maneuvering in flight to hit targets that are offset from where the sniper rifle is aimed.
How does it work? DARPA pointed to specially designed ammunition and real-time optical guidance systems that help track and direct projectiles to their targets, compensating for weather, wind, target movement and other factors that could impede successful hits.
Interestingly, DARPA awarded two contracts for the program in 2009 — one to Lockheed Martin for $12.3 million and one to California-based Teledyne Scientific & Imaging for $9.5 million — that called upon each company to produce a technology development assessment plan. Two years later, Teledyne was the one to move on to the next phase of actual execution — landing a $25.45 million contract to build and test the system. Next, Teledyne will focus on technology refinement to enhance and improve performance.
