GUN-AMMUNITION INTELLIGENT SYSTEM FOR OWNER RECOGNITION OF PORTABLE GUNS

Abstract

An intelligent gun-ammunition system for a portable gun includes a gun having a handle; an owner recognition circuit having circuitry for recognizing an authorized grip on the handle and an activating circuit for allowing operation of a firing mechanism of the gun when authorized grip is recognized; ammunition for the gun; and an ammunition circuit communicated with the owner recognition circuit for allowing the ammunition to be fired when the owner recognition circuit recognizes the authorized grip.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/763,805, filed Apr. 20, 2010 which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/593,835 filed Sep. 22, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,698,846 which is the U.S. national phase of International Application No. PCT/BR2004/000163 filed Sep. 2, 2004.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

When a person shoots a gun, the energy required to pull the trigger is generated entirely by contraction of his muscles. The grasp of the hand on the grip of the gun constitutes the interface between the shooter and the gun

To maintain control of the gun and transfer energy to the trigger, the hand has to grasp the grip. When the hand grips a gun handle, it produces a grip force, classically defined as the force applied through the fingers and the palm normal to the handle's surface.

In jobs that require repetitive gripping, an ergonomic evaluation should include a measure or estimation of the applied grip force. The bibliography of such evaluations shows that the normal grip force used to grab objects varies between 20 and 80 N. The force intensity is related to previous training (for example, using a sensor adapted to a screwdriver employed to fix a screw), and in some instances such as grip of a tennis racket, the grip force is also related to previous knowledge of the trajectory of the object to be hit and knowledge of the time of hitting

Various mechanisms have been proposed for use in enhancing the security of operation of a firearm. Despite such efforts, the need always remains for further enhancements in security.

It is the goal of the present invention to utilize the above-mentioned grip force and other factors to enhance security of operation of a firearm.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will appear herein.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the present invention, the foregoing objects and advantages have been readily attained.

According to the invention, an intelligent gun-ammunition system for a portable gun is provided which comprises a gun having a handle; an owner recognition circuit comprising means for recognizing an authorized grip on the handle and an activating circuit for allowing operation of a firing mechanism of the gun when the authorized grip is recognized; ammunition for the gun; and an ammunition circuit communicated with the owner recognition circuit for allowing the ammunition to be fired when the owner recognition circuit recognizes the authorized grip.

In the gun-ammunition intelligent system of the invention, in order to be as safe as possible, the ammunition preferably has an electric squib responsible for the gun firing.

This can be coupled with an ammunition circuit as described above, that will allow firing, as long as it receives an appropriate signal sent by the gun, and the gun sends this signal if the owner recognition circuit recognizes the grip of the shooter.

The owner recognition circuit of the present invention is also referred to herein as a “gun-chip” and the ammunition circuit is also referred to herein for as an “ammunition chip”.

In the present invention, final authorization for firing is provided by the intelligent ammunition, if and only if the two sequential stages of the gun owner recognition are positive: the grip force recognition by the “gun-chip” and the firing liberation signal by the “ammunition chip”.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention follows, with reference to the attached drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a gun in accordance with the present inventions;

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of an owner recognition circuit for the gun of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of an ammunition circuit in accordance with the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention relates to an intelligent gun-ammunition system for portable guns which enhances security and operation of the firearm by use of an owner recognition circuit for validating the user based upon recognition of gripping forces on the hand gun, and further includes an ammunition circuit which is communicated with the owner recognition circuit for receiving an indication that the shooter gripping the gun has a recognized grip. The ammunition circuit includes an electrically activated squib in the ammunition which can only be ignited if the ammunition circuit receives the appropriate signal from the owner recognition circuit.

The base technology of the owner recognition circuit is substantially similar to a system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,698,846, which is commonly owned with the present application, from which priority of this application is claimed-in-part, and which U.S. patent is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

In this invention, the shooting of a portable gun is based on two steps.

The first step starts with the shooter recognition by the gun. This is accomplished in a biometric way: strain gauges placed in the gun grip measure the gripping forces of the shooter and compare those forces with the force range stored in the gun-chip, belonging to authorized shooters.

The second step—according to the invention—is the recognition by the ammunition of the firing signal emitted by the “gun-chip”, after the recognition of the shooter. The recognition is performed by an “ammunition-chip” that actuates an electrical squib, allowing firing of the shot.

The intelligent gun-ammunition system is constituted by three parts: special gun; appropriate ammunition; and operational support bench.

The special gun is built from the standard weapon, with the following modifications, as shown in the FIG. 1.

Referring to FIG. 1, a gun 100 in accordance with the invention is shown having a handle portion 10 which has a plurality of strain gauges, 101, 102, 103, 104 and 105 which are communicated with internal circuitry in the gun and which receive force from a grip of a user, and translate that force into a signal which is detected by the internal circuitry of the gun. This internal circuitry will be discussed further below with respect to FIG. 2.

Gun 100 further includes a power source 108 which operates the internal circuitry of the gun and may also have a signaling lamp 110 or similar device, positioned in a visible location to a shooter of gun 100, which functions as will be further described below.

A control switch 111 can be positioned on gun 100, and can be used to control the mode of operation of gun 100, specifically, in an off mode, a secure mode wherein the owner recognition circuit is activated, and if desired, an emergency mode wherein some or all of the security recognition features are overridden.

Gun 100 can advantageously have a communication port such as a typical USB port and the like, schematically shown at 107 in FIG. 1, for use in communicating the gun and internal circuitry with a computer, processor or the like for use in programming the internal circuitry of gun 100. A further strain gage which will be referred to as strain gage 106 will preferably be positioned on the opposite side of gun 100 as shown in FIG. 1, and thus, numeral 106 is positioned with reference numeral 105 as the strain gage 106 would be positioned in approximately the same location as strain gage 105 on the opposite side of the handle.

In accordance with the invention, the strain gages on the gun handle are integrated with an electronic circuit within the gun, also referred to as the gun-chip, and the strain gages will each measure the local grip force at different positions of the hand when gun 100 is held by a potential shooter.

The internal circuitry of gun 100, as will be discussed below with respect to FIGS. 2 and 3, is responsible for the storage of coded data with respect to the authorized shooters of that weapon, for the ciphering of this data, and further for shooter recognition and gun liberation for firing. This circuit conducts these functions utilizing microprocessing components and connections which themselves are knows to persons of ordinary skill in the art.

Gun 100 in accordance with the present invention is preferably modified so as to remove any firing hammer or the like, as the firing of this gun will preferably be electronic. In the place of the hammer, a key or control switch 111 can be provided, as discussed above, and can be used to configure the gun into positions for normal operations, maintenance, emergency use and the like. As mentioned above, signaling lamp 110 can preferably be a lamp with two colors, for example red and green. The positioning of signaling lamp 110 makes visible indication of the status of the gun very easy to be seen by a shooter as focus would be directly along the line of the positioning of the signaling lamp 110.

USB connector 107 can be positioned in any convenient location, and is shown in FIG. 1 as being positioned along the bottom of the handle of the gun.

In accordance with the invention, strain gages are preferably placed either in the frontal part of the handle in an ergonomic position for the three fingers of the hand to be used to hold the gun, and also in the posterior part of the handle in the ergonomic position of the part of the palm of the hand corresponding to the thumb, and on both lateral portions of the handle as well in the ergonomic position of the palm used to hold the gun. With these last two strain gages on either side of the gun, the gun can be held by a shooter for dextral or left-handed shooters and both types of gripping of the gun can provide suitable forces to the strain gages for use in recognizing the shooter

As mentioned above, control switch 111 can advantageously be used to configure the gun into three distinct operational modes, namely, normal operation, maintenance, and emergency.

Turning to FIG. 2, a block diagram is provided of the gun circuit, or owner recognition circuit, in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows input along the left side from strain gages 101-106, and energy source 108, lamp 110, USB 107, a safety pin or troll switch 111 (labeled SW and safety pin in the drawing) and a connector which will be discussed further below.

The actual owner recognition circuit 109 receives input from strain gages 101-106 and is powered by energy source 108. The owner recognition circuit includes a buffer for temporarily storing received signals and a memory for storing authorized grip forces or force patterns, a read/write (R/W) mechanism and a processor for comparing signals received from strain gages 101-106 stored in the memory. When the processor recognizes a match, a gun control unit then properly powers lamp 110 to give an indication that the shooter is recognized as an authorized owner, and a signal is sent from the gun control through safety pin 111 to a connector to the ammunition circuit of FIG. 3.

A USB control is also included in the owner recognition circuit, and is communicated with port 107 for programming using a personal computing device or the like, as would be well understood to a person skilled in the art.

FIG. 3 shows the ammunition circuit in accordance with the present invention, and shows a connector which would be communicated to the connector of FIG. 2, and ammunition chip 201 which includes a processor and a memory, and a squib 202, ammunition charge and projectile. Ammunition chip 201 can also have a memory as shown. Each of these components is positioned within a cartridge 200 which constitutes the intelligent ammunition in accordance with the present invention.

Squib 201 and subsequent firing of the ammunition requires the appropriate signal to be received by ammunition chip 201. The system ammunition is then ignited by an electrical action, rather than the conventional mechanical percussion.

The ammunition circuit can likewise be energized by the gun power supply of FIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 3, during an ignition sequence, squib 201 would ignite the ammunition charge which would ignite propellant and thereby fire the projectile. However, this ignition can only happen when ammunition chip 201 receives the proper signal from the gun chip or gun control circuit of FIG. 2.

As mentioned above, USB port 107 can be used to communicate gun 100 and the internal circuitry with a personal computing device such as a personal computer, laptop, or other workstation or other microprocessor or the like.

This workstation, and the functionality provided by the communication with USB port 107, is referred to herein as “bench of operational support”. Access to the personal computer software for use in controlling programming of the gun would of course be protected by password, and when an authorized user enters the appropriate password, the bench of operational support can advantageously be used to command the weapon, for example by configuring the weapon into maintenance mode; to inhibit firing of the gun; to store and process data obtained during maintenance, and/or training of an authorized user; to cipher various data and parameters; to store files of the weapon with the ciphered calculated parameters that define the shooter; and to put the weapon in an emergency mode which inhibits the circuit for recognition of the shooter.

In order for gun 100 to properly recognize the shooter, it is important for the shooter to properly “train” the weapon by repeatedly gripping the weapon so that the signals received by the strain gages of the weapon can generate signals to be stored within the owner recognition circuit. In order to do this, one preferred method would be to place the weapon into communication with the bench of operational support using the USB port. With the weapon connected, the weapon can be placed into maintenance mode using the bench of operational support (OSB), and under the maintenance mode, the weapon can be placed into a mode for registration of an operator or authorized shooter. The gun can then be gripped by the authorized user, and a series of “dry” shots can be fired to simulate the various forces on the handle when gripped by the authorized user. After a suitable sub-set of grippings of the gun, each time with the forces being measured and registered in the bench of operational support, a distribution of the shot is then calculated along with an average and standard deviation, and the bench of operational support can generate a signal when sufficient data has been collected to reliably recognize a particular user. The OSB can then be used to stop the registration process, and the intended shooter can grip the weapon to verify that his grip is recognized. The weapon recognizes the grip of the shooter, enables functioning of the weapon, and an indicating light is operated to show owner recognition, for example by way of a green light.

The bench of operational support can then be removed from registration of an operator mode, enabling the normal operation of the gun. The bench of operational support can then be used to configure the weapon into normal mode; the weapon is then disconnected from the bench of operational support, and can be used by an authorized user to fire ammunition as desired.

When it is desired to fire the gun, the gun should be configured to either normal mode or emergency mode.

In the normal mode, the shot sequence would be as follows.

In the first phase of firing under normal mode, shooter recognition is based upon the measurement of his or her grip force on the handle of the gun, comparison of the grip force with stored ranges of the same force measured and stored in the weapon, used to determine whether the intended shooter is authorized.

Gun 100 will only recognize the shooter if the shooter's local forces of grip within the operational bands recorded during training of gun 100 to recognize its owner, of course within a stipulated value of deviation. When the shooter is recognized, a specific signal is sent to the ammunition chip, and this indicates that a shot can be fired.

When the proper grip is recognized, the weapon is ready to be fired, a signal of this readiness will be sent to the circuit of control of the weapon, which will enable the information of “ready” to the shooter, for example with the green indicator light mentioned above.

As mentioned above, when an authorized grip is recognized, signal is sent by the owner recognition circuit to the ammunition circuit, and when the ammunition circuit receives the appropriate signal, the ammunition chip will be ready for firing of a shot after the following phase occurs.

Typically, firing will be made by pressing the trigger (see FIG. 1) of gun 100 when the conditions have been met, that is, when the owner recognition circuit recognizes the grip of the shooter, and the ammunition circuit receives the specific signal from the owner recognition circuit.

When the trigger is pulled, and the owner recognition circuit recognizes an authorized grip, the ammunition circuit starts a firing chain wherein the ammunition chip enables current to the squib, which in turn will feed the ignition charge, and ultimately detonate the propellant which will expel the projectile from the barrel of the gun.

When operated in emergency mode, which only can be done with the use of a bench of operational support, verification of the identity of the shooter is disabled, visual indicator will always show gun is ready to be fired, for example with a green light. Thus when the handle of the gun is gripped, the ignition signal of the gun is sent to ignition circuit as desired.

As set forth above, strain gages 101-106 verify if the locally applied grip forces fit into the six small operational ranges registered by the owner of the gun in the initial configuration of the gun.

The connector shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 can in fact be a contact or other type of contact which would reliably connect between the owner recognition circuit and ammunition circuit when the ammunition is placed in the gun.

Still referring to FIG. 3, the ammunition chip is responsible for processing and recognition of the signal of authorization from the owner recognition circuit. The squib 201 is responsible for energy transfer to the charge, beginning the shooting phase, when the shooting is authorized and the trigger is pressed or pulled.

The ignition or ammunition charge shown in FIG. 3 is the mechanism to start the firing, supplying energy to the propellant of the projectile.

The propellant is the mechanism of execution of firing, the energy to the projectile and executing the shot. Finally, the projectile shown in FIG. 3 is schematically illustrated, but could be any type of actual projectile, bullet or the like being well known to persons of skill in the art.

It should be appreciated that the present description is provided of embodiment of the invention, and the various modifications and alterations of the embodiment disclosed herein would be readily apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art upon consideration of this description. It is therefore to be understood that the scope of the invention is not to be limited by the description provided herein, but rather by the scope of the claims as appended hereto.

Claims

1. An intelligent gun-ammunition system for a portable gun comprising:

a gun having a handle;

an owner recognition circuit comprising means for recognizing an authorized grip on the handle and an activating circuit for allowing operation of a firing mechanism of the gun when authorized grip is recognized;

ammunition for the gun; and

an ammunition circuit communicated with the owner recognition circuit for allowing the ammunition to be fired when the owner recognition circuit recognizes the authorized grip.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a visual indicator operatively associated with the owner recognition circuit for providing a visible indication of whether the authorized grip has been recognized.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the gun has an electrical ignition, and wherein the electrical ignition is controlled by the ammunition circuit.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the ammunition includes a squib, an ignition charge and propellant, and wherein firing the gun when the owner recognition circuit recognizes the authorized grip activates the ammunition circuit and starts a firing chain in the order of squib, ignition charge and then propellant.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the owner recognition circuit and the ammunition circuit prevent ignition of the propellant when the authorized grip is not recognized.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the gun further comprises a connection port for communicating with a processing device.