(((Found the link on WIRED Threat Level.)))
http://www.gcn.com/print/27_10/46206-1.html
Army’s prototype system uses RFID tags to track weapons use.
"In the heat of battle, the last thing any warfighter wants to do is paperwork. Yet soldiers have to keep track of how many times they fire their weapons during combat, largely so the Army can better estimate when each weapon has reached the end of its useful life.
Now the Army is turning to its Benét Laboratories for ways to automate such tallies by attaching radio frequency identification tags and associated circuitry to weapons. (((That's a great place for them, actually.)))
“We envision a system that will automatically count rounds fired, perform basic health monitoring, and upload this information directly into existing or modified databases,” said Kevin Miner, program manager at the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, which oversees Benét. “The goal is to automate counting of ammo fired and to provide increased operational and maintenance capabilities through automation.”
Commercial versions of the equipment could begin appearing by the end of the year. The prototype was first tested on guns installed on M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. The lab did initial testing on a medium-caliber cannon barrel for several hundred shots. “Putting the prototype on an existing fielded system will allow real-world testing in some of the harshest environments imaginable,” Miner said.
The technology package placed on each weapon consists of a piezoelectric sensor that determines when the weapon has been fired by sensing the recoil, a tiny processor with limited memory to record and store output from the sensor, and an RFID tag to communicate the data to an RFID reader.
Using signatures developed by the lab, the package can record the number and type of rounds fired and even deduce other characteristics from the intensity of the firing, such as strain, acceleration, heat and resonant electromagnetic frequencies, all of which can help estimate the viability of the weapons. (((Hey, and it might help to recycle them, too, for a world of sustainable tank weaponry – would that be too much to ask?)))
Knowing when to retire
By automating data collection, the Army can more accurately gauge wear and tear on weapons. “Counting ammo use on every system is imperative to determining the component-part fatigue and when to send it in for service,” Miner said.
For Benét Laboratories, the research was a natural outgrowth of its core missions of designing large-caliber cannon and mortar systems and investigating new developments in armaments science, engineering, testing and manufacturing.(...)
