marksmanship

A project an Army mechanical engineer is working on:

At the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, or ARL, Dan Baechle, a mechanical engineer, is testing MAXFAS, a mechatronic arm exoskeleton, which is designed so that it could be used to train new Soldiers to reach shooting proficiency faster.  The problem he wants to correct is the same as the familiar effect, which happens when someone aims a laser pointer at arm’s length toward a board on the other side of the room, and notices a slight, but constant movement of the laser light on the board. The initial experiments showed that after subjects wore MAXFAS and then performed a shooting trial, the tremor that causes this type of shake was lessened, even after removing the device, he said.

Baechle believes the project, he has been working on for the last year, has a chance, because fatigue, involuntary tremors in the arm and difficult situations, like shooting under fire or shooting on the move, will continue to degrade shooting performance in Soldiers even as more advanced weapons technology emerges. (Source)

Interesting!  Yea I could definitely see how that would be useful.  Fun to try out too for us non military guys.  The amount of on-the-fly calculations this system must have to do to discern between actual wanted movement and tremors must be insane.  So many unknowns.  Last thing you’d want to do is have a servo restrict a soldier’s movement unnecessarily.  You don’t always get 2nd chances when you’re getting shot at.

So much of these new ideas are so emerging technology dependent.  Like, in “theory” this is amazing, until you realize that the servos currently needed aren’t that small… they need power to operate so there are batteries needed… Batteries don’t last forever… and on and on.

Thoughts?  Would actually operate with?  Worse case scenario I figure I’d pick one up to avoid cheeto eating fatigue while at the computer.  Nothing is worse than having to switch arms because your primary eating arm gets tired.

P.S. – Has there been any military feminist moment pushing to get the term changed to “Markspersonship?”  LOL ya I crack myself up.