Optical Projectile Identification and Inventory System

The U.S. Army constantly plans for the needs of future warfare to retain its technological superiority. FCS is a major effort designed to meet this need. FCS includes multiple automatic fire weapons. One such weapon is the RAMM. The RAMM is an automaticfire mortar turret that can be integrated with various vehicle bodies. On previous automatic systems, a human manually entered information about each weapon loaded. This is a slow process, placing the soldier and the weapon in danger. Our Phase I effortproved that it is possible to create an optical system that can recognize the munition type as it is loaded into the magazine. The system can also determine the lot number of the munition from the text on the shell. The system uses a combination of shape,color, and text to identify the munition. The system processes the data in real-time, allowing the user to load the mortars as quickly as possible. In the Phase II effort, we will create a completely functional prototype system that can determine munitiontype under real-life conditions. We will create an embedded version of the system components to show that the system can be integrated directly into the RAMM.The system to be developed in the Phase II effort will be immediately applicable to the RAMMproject. The initial commercial application will be a true integration into the RAMM. The system will also be useful for other automatic fire weapon systems (such as Crusader).