A self-aiming rifle... Benefits vs Consequences

I just happened to stumble upon this article in the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">New Scientist | Science news and science articles from New Scientist</a>. Quite an amazing product. But what about the potential misuse of such weapons?

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First time firing a gun? There's help at hand â€“ a new "self-aiming" rifle can help even a novice hit the target at long range on the first go. But the technology has its critics, who see it as a serious threat to public safety.

The smart rifle that allows the user to accurately hit targets up to 900 metres away has gone on sale in the US.

Made by #-Link-Snipped-#, a start-up based in Austin, Texas, the new $22,000 weapon is a precision guided firearm (PGF). According to company president Jason Schauble, it uses a variant of the "lock-and-launch" technology that lets fighter jets fire air-to-air missiles without the pilot having to perform precision aiming.

The PGF lets the user choose a target in the rifle's sights while the weapon decides when it is the best time to shoot - compensating for factors like wind speed, arm shake, recoil, air temperature, humidity and the bullet's drop due to gravity, all of which can affect accuracy.

To do this, the PGF's tracking system includes a computer running the open-source Linux operating system, a laser rangefinder, a camera and a high-resolution colour display in an integrated sighting scope mounted on top of the weapon. The user simply takes aim and presses a button near the trigger when a dot from the laser illuminates the target.

The computer then runs an algorithm using image-processing routines to keep track of the target as it moves, keeping the laser dot "painted" on the same point. At the same time, the algorithm increases the pressure required to pull the trigger, only reducing it when the gun's crosshairs are right over the laser dot â€“ and the bullet is then fired.

The gun is novel at another level: it has Wi-Fi. This allows imagery from the sight to be streamed to a smartphone or tablet, so the user can share what they are seeing with others. In addition, it lets the user key a PIN into a smartphone to activate the guided aiming.

In tests, the system has proven astonishingly accurate - even with novices - at hitting targets at a range of 500 to 900 metres.