This application claims priority to European patent application 07116964.3 filed 21 Sep. 2007.
The invention relates to a shooting target system, and a method for automatically retrieving information relating to the point of impact of a projectile in a target.
In both civil and military firearm shooting training, there is often a desire to detect quickly and automatically where a fired shot has hit. In some applications it is sufficient to determine whether a particular shot has hit or missed an intended target and in other applications there is a desire to determine precisely where in the target region the projectile hit, i.e. to determine the point of impact of the projectile in the target region.
One known method for automatically determining whether a shot has hit or missed a target is to attach a shock sensor to the target and monitor the output from the sensor. If the sensor detects vibrations with an amplitude bigger than a predetermined threshold value in the target material, a projectile can be assumed to have hit the target and a “hit” can be confirmed. Such sensing devices for live fire, as opposed to for example sensing devices for laser simulation, must be protectively mounted, usually along the bottom edge of the target.
There are also several known methods for automatically determine the actual point of impact of a projectile in a target region. Most methods employ a plurality of acoustic sensors, i.e. microphones, to detect either the sonic boom caused by a supersonic projectile, or the sound waves generated when the projectile hits the target.
One way of utilizing the sonic boom caused by supersonic projectiles for determining the point of impact in a target region is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,522. The point-of-impact indication system described therein includes an array of acoustic sensors disposed in the vicinity of the target plane, not all lying on one straight line, which sensors detects the sonic booms generated by the supersonic projectiles used in the shooting exercise. Based on the outputs from the sensors, the shock wave time-delay for each sensor can be determined. This information is then used to determine the trajectory of the projectile and a point of impact in the target region can be estimated based on the determined projectile trajectory.
This method is associated with several drawbacks. For example, it only works when using firearms having a muzzle velocity exceeding the speed of sound since the projectiles must have a supersonic speed when approaching the target; the “point-of-impact determination” is not a determination of the actual point of impact but a point-of-impact prediction based on the projectile trajectory when approaching the target; a large number of microphones is required to be able to determine the point of impact of projectiles hitting a three dimensional (3D) target, in which case the projectiles can approach the target from a wide range, both horizontal and vertical; a lot of computational power is required to first calculate the projectile trajectory based on the sensor outputs and then calculate the presumed point of impact in the target.
One way of determining the point of impact of a projectile in a target region utilizing the sound waves generated when the projectile hits the target is disclosed in, e.g., the background portion of the European patent application No. 1 058 083. By arranging a plurality of microphones in a non-straight line in front of the target region and by determining the run-time difference of a sound wave originating from the impact of the projectile in the target between the different microphones, the point of impact can be calculated using geometrical regularities. One common microphone arrangement for this purpose is a T-shaped configuration having three aligned microphones arranged in parallel with the target plane, and a fourth microphone centrally arranged at a distance in front of the target. EP 1 058 083 discloses a refinement of such a detection system which comprises a plurality of T-shaped microphone configurations so as to increase the accuracy of the point-of-impact determination.
This method also requires a large number of acoustic sensors for determining the points of impact in a 3D target of projectiles coming from a wide range of directions in both azimuth and elevation. In close combat training for example, there is often a desire to be able to determine the point of impact of projectiles incident on a 3D target from azimuth angles varying with up to 180°, and angles of elevation varying with approximately 90°. The large number of acoustic sensors required in such a target system increases not only the size of the detection system, but also very much the complexity of the calculation algorithms needed to determine the point of impact.
Moreover, both the above methods for determining the point of impact of a projectile in a target suffer from the following drawbacks: The microphone frames or setups must be placed on the ground in front of the target making the target system delicate and cumbersome to move. In close combat training, the microphones may be stepped upon or even tripped over; The microphones must be very accurately aligned and spaced, both to each other and to the target, since only a small misplacement could cause a large error in the point-of-impact determination; Acoustic sensors and the peripheral equipment required in acoustic detection systems are costly.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cheap and compact shooting target system which is able to automatically retrieve information relating to the point of impact of a projectile in a target.
This object is achieved by a shooting target system comprising:
By utilizing shock sensors in order to retrieve information relating to the point of impact of a projectile in a target, the sensors can be attached directly to the target and the target system can thus be made very compact. Furthermore, conventional shock sensors available in the market can be used to implement the invention, thus minimizing the manufacturing cost of the target system.
Another advantage of the target system according to the above is that it is well suited for determining the point of impact of a projectile in three dimensional targets.
The target material may be any material in which shock waves arise and propagate upon an impact of a projectile but preferably the target material is some metal, some plastic compound, ceramic or fibreglass.
In one embodiment of the shooting target system, the target is “shredded” to form a comb-shaped target. That is, the target comprises at least one slit substantially dividing the target into at least two target strips which are held together by a portion connecting the substantially separated target strips, i.e. a connection portion forming the “base” of the comb. For example, the target may comprise a plurality of vertical slits extending from the bottom of the target to a distance from the top of the target, leaving a horizontal connection portion at the top of the target. By placing a shock sensor at or near the bottom of each target strip, the shock sensor disposed at the bottom of the particular target strip hit by a projectile will be the first sensor to detect the shock wave generated by the projectile impact and propagating in the longitudinal directions of the target strip. Thereby, the horizontal location of the point of impact of the projectile can be determined by simply registering which one of the sensors that is the first to detect the shock wave. The exactness of horizontal location determination of the point of impact is of course depending on the width of the target strips. The shock wave front propagating in the opposite direction is spread to the other target strips by the connection portion. The sensor located at the neighbouring target strip, which sensor is located closest to the first sensor detecting the shock wave from a propagation distance point of view, will be the next sensor to detect the shock wave, and the shock wave run-time difference between the two sensors is used to calculate the vertical location of the point of impact.
That is, by utilizing a “shredded” shooting target, the equation system that needs to be solved in order to determine the point of impact is reduced by one dimension, substantially reducing the computational power needed by the target system to calculate the point of impact of the projectile. Furthermore, a shredded target as described above prolongs the shock wave propagation path, i.e. the distance the shock wave have to travel in the target material, between the different sensors, thereby reducing the demands on the response time of the shock sensors and the electric circuit processing the shock sensor signals.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for automatically retrieve information about the point of impact of a projectile in a shooting target. This object is achieved by a method.
The result of the calculation may be any information relating to the point from which the shock wave originates, i.e. the point of impact of the projectile, such as an angle and a distance from a reference point in the target, or the coordinates for the calculated point of impact.
Although the shooting target system 1 in
The parameter values needed to calculate the point of impact except for the run-time difference of the shock wave between the sensors detecting it, such as the speed of sound in the target material and the propagation distance between the shock sensors, are preferably stored in the storage means 15 of the calculation means 12. The calculation means 12 may also comprise a user interface that allows a user to change these parameter values needed to calculate the information related to the point of impact so as to allow the same calculation means 12 to be used with different targets composed by different materials and/or shaped differently, and/or to allow repositioning of the shock sensors at a target so as to optimize sensor readings.
The speed of sound in an aluminium or other metal target is approximately 5000 m/sec which means that the shock wave travels approximately 10 cm in 0.02 ms. The shock sensors 10a-c should be separated by a distance ensuring that the electronic circuit of the calculation means 12 can distinguish the different sensor signals from each other. The exactness of the point-of-impact determination depends on the accuracy of the timer value readings. For example, a timer reading accuracy of ±0.01 ms corresponds to a point-of-impact uncertainty of ±5 cm. The point-of-impact uncertainty will henceforth synonymously be referred to as the “target system resolution” and a point-of-impact uncertainty of ±5 cm thus corresponds to a target system resolution of 5 cm.
As aforementioned, shooting targets, and especially shooting targets used in military shooting exercises, often depicts fictitious enemy soldiers. A target system resolution of 5 cm, which is fully possible to achieve with the target system according to the present invention, is thus sufficient to determine which part of the “body” that is hit by an incident projectile. The indication means receiving the result of the point-of-impact determination can thus be arranged to visually or aurally indicate to the marksman that a shot has hit the “left leg”, the “right arm”, the “head” etc. This may be achieved by associating each target coordinate or different target regions with a part of the body in a look-up table located in the calculation means 12 or the indication means of the shooting target system.
Gusts of wind and rain may strike the target 11 and give rise to vibrations in the target material which undesirably may be registered by the sensors 10a-c and taken for an incident projectile by the calculation means 12. To avoid this problem, the calculation means is preferably arranged to compare the output signals from the chock sensors 10a-c with a predetermined threshold value and ignore signals indicative of chock waves or vibrations with amplitudes below a certain limit value. To further minimize the risk of calculating the “point of impact” based on shock waves or vibrations that are not caused by a projectile hitting the target 11, the calculation means 12 may be arranged to ignore all output signals from the shock sensors that are not within a predetermined amplitude interval, which interval is characteristic of shock waves caused by a projectile impact on the target. Yet a further alternative is to analyze the variation of the sensor signal amplitude in time and only calculate the point of impact for those shock wave signals having an amplitude-time signature that matches a predetermined amplitude-time signature which is characteristic of shock waves originating from a hit by a projectile. For example, the amplitude of consecutive shock waves originating from a projectile impact rapidly decrease in amplitude while the amplitudes of consecutive shock waves originating from gusts of wind most likely will fluctuate randomly. That is, the calculation means 12 may comprise logic that, by studying the amplitude of a plurality of consecutive shock waves, is able to distinguish shock waves or vibrations originating from a projectile impact from other non-projectile generated shock waves.
In
By dividing the target into a plurality of target portions by means of slits, the shock wave propagation path between the different shock sensors is prolonged, reducing the demands on the response time of the shock sensors and the electronic circuit processing the sensor signals. It also reduces the demands on the computational power of the calculation means since only one target coordinate needs to be calculated in order to establish the point of impact of the projectile. In, e.g., the embodiment shown in
If a projectile hits the target 21 in the middle of a slit or hits the connection portion 29 right between two target strips, the shock wave will reach two sensors at substantially the same time. In such a case, the signal from the third sensor detecting the shock wave can be used to obtain a timer value indicative of the run time difference of the shock wave between the first two sensors and the third sensor, and hence used to calculate the point of impact of the projectile on the target. As aforementioned, two sensors are however sufficient to retrieve some information related to the point of impact even in such an event. For example, if the target only comprises one vertical slit dividing the target into two vertical target strips, each having a shock sensor disposed at its lower end, and a shock wave would reach the two sensors at the same time, the calculation means can establish that a projectile has hit the target somewhere along a vertical line right between the two sensors, i.e. in the middle of the slit or in the middle of the connection portion.
It should be appreciated that the shredded targets 21, 31 illustrated herein also could be horizontally or otherwise “shredded”, and that the different target portions 28a-f, 29, 38a-d, 39 could have any conceivable shape and size.
As mentioned above, one of the purposes of the slits 27, 37 is to prolong the propagation distance of the shock wave between the sensors 20a-f, 30a-d. A person skilled in the art would appreciate that this purpose can be achieved in many other ways and that the particular solution employing slits, shown herein, is just one possible way of doing so.
It should also be appreciated that a target of a shooting target system according to the invention can comprise a combination of several separate targets 11, 21, 31. For example, one roughly shredded target with, e.g., only two target strips with associated sensors may represent the “head” of a target depicting an enemy soldier, while a finely shredded target with many more target strips may constitute the upper body of the combined target, and yet another separate roughly shredded target may constitute the legs. In such case the sensors arranged to detect the shock waves propagating in the different targets may either be connected to separate calculation means or common calculation means.
The shock sensors 10a-c, 20a-f, 30a-d are preferably piezoelectric accelerometers and they are preferably mounted onto the targets 11, 21, 31 in a way that protects them from being hit by incident projectiles. For example, the shock sensors may be disposed at the bottom of the targets, as illustrated in the figures, and the targets may be located behind a bullet-proof bank or wall extending over the bottom part of the targets, sheltering the shock sensors from incident projectiles. Piezoelectric accelerometers suitable to use as shock sensors when implementing the present invention is easily obtainable in the market, making it easy to replace one or several sensors in the shooting target system if they should brake.
The targets 11, 21, 31 may be composed by any material in which shock waves/vibrations arise and propagate when hit by a projectile. In order for the shock waves to be detected by the shock sensors, it is important that the material does not absorb the vibrations to such a big extent that the amplitude of a shock wave is too small to be detectable when reaching the sensors. For example, the targets may be composed by metal, plastic, ceramic or fibreglass. It is also important that the target surface does not comprise too many sharp edges since sharp edges tend to convey the vibrational energy out from the target. Otherwise, the targets in the shooting target system according to the invention may have any conceivable size and shape. It should also be appreciated that any weapon and any ammunition can be used with the shooting target system according to the invention, as long as the projectiles fired by the weapon creates detectable shock waves in the target material when hitting the target.
Furthermore, the shooting target system 1, 2, 3 according to the invention preferably comprises hit indication means (not shown) for indicating the point of impact, or the information relating to the point of impact, in the target 11, 21, 31 to the user shooting at it. The hit indication means may be arranged to receive the result of the point-of-impact calculation from the calculation means 12, 22, 32 and visually or aurally indicate to the user if, and/or where, he or she has hit the target. The indication means may be a separate device arranged to receive the point-of-impact result from the calculation means, or form an integral part of the calculation means. The storage means 15, 25, 35 or additional storage means (not shown), may also be arranged to receive the results of the point-of-impact calculations from the calculation means and store the results for later evaluation of shooting exercises. This may be achieved by e.g. providing the calculation means with a communication interface, such as a USB or WiFi interface, allowing information to be transferred from the calculation means to, e.g., a portable computer device.
The detailed disclosure of the embodiments of the shooting target system according to the invention given herein should only be construed as illustrative and exemplary and merely serves the purpose of providing a full and enabling disclosure thereof. Accordingly, it is intended that the invention should be limited only by the scope of the claims appended hereinafter.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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07116964.3 | Sep 2007 | EP | regional |