"Centralizing" Support Equipment

[THEIS]

Hi,

As we all know..with the advancements in the ELR world the support equipment utilized is and will be needing its' own advancements.
So my questions to you all is:

1. What are you looking/hoping for in support equipment advancements?
2. What current support equipment would you like to see "centralized" aka combined into a single piece of equipment?

For example....what if I was able to "centralize" and offer the following piece of equipment in a single unit:

• Automatic calculation of vertical and horizontal amendments at the distance up to 5000 meters;
• LRF: 5000m
• Ballistic data base for three ammunitions for each of eight rifles;
• Built-in meteorological station (atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity);
• Counting of number of shots for each ammunition and rifle;
• Built-in electronic compass, 3-axis gyro sensor and G meter;
• Built-in sensors: tilt angle, elevation angle, rest and free fall;
• Connection of accessories (optional):
  • Remote control (wristband);
  • Meteorological station with ultrasonic wind speed and direction sensors (without vane and impeller), pressure sensor, temperature and humidity;
  • Kestrel meteorological station;
  • Bluetooth headset for voice guidance about operating modes and results of calculation.
• iOS / Android application for smartphone or tablet for target coordinates calculation and its displaying at the electronic map (optional);
• Adjustment and operating of the device by using software application for smartphones and tablets (iOS / Android)
• Energy-saving mode for power consumption reduction and quick switching into the operating mode;

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[LastShot300]

My two cents:

-The best ballistics engine is a must, otherwise all this hardware means little despite being an awesome package, which it is without any doubt.
-Why only 8 rifles? If the phone app can support an unlimited numbers of variations (with/without supressor, zero offsets due to different ammo, etc. the combinations can easily go beyond 8 systems.
-No need for Kestrel given the state-of-the-art station aforementioned, but won't hurt either.
-Make sure the display is bright and easy to read under most light conditions

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

@LastShot300
Lay out everything you "think" you might would want in a centralized system based off your experience and your take on where the industry is going

Innovation can only become useful if we go straight to the end users first instead of "after the fact". I am 1 end user and you all are many end users so your "2 cents" is closer to a Benjamin

We as commercial entities in the ELR realm should not be ONLY looking to "force" our thoughts and inputs onto the industry, but rather we should be going to the end users from the get go. That reduces the amount of "friction" between the commercial entities and end users that we regularly see in the industry.

Thank you all in advance for your input,
Theis

 

[LastShot300]

Theis, in my mind this is the future, the way we'll do our shooting sooner rather than later and in that regards I think you are on the right track to make things happen. Call it ELR, LR or whatever fits the definition but make no mistake, this kind of efforts by the best in the industry will be embraced as long as it delivers. It's also loable how you want to "ask the market first" which is sound use of marketing than the usual "fix it later" approach so common. However, there is limit to where cut the line, and if the equipment is designed to easily take changes, then no need to worry much ado about feeedback right now. Just make it 90% right for now, including price and later listen to what the user base has to say, you know, perfection is the enemy of good

 

[THEIS]

perfection is the enemy of good

Hi,
Thanks for the input!!
Your last half sentence is both cry-able and laughable for so many reasons right now with me. We have changed our "production" version receiver 5 times now because of wanting to add "one more feature" or "change one more dimension" lolol....latest change is a new "cam system" for QD barrel changes. Last change I say to myself every night before going to sleep lolol....BUT at the same time I am still waiting on stock so all our testing has been done in rail gun system. Maybe its' time to reach out to one of the chassis manufactures instead of stock manufacturers.....

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[Clearlight]

‘ Economical ‘ lightweight wind lidar integrated with ballistic solver , can be separate unit to RF .
As you know we already have this capability in many different targeting systems , heres
hoping they get more affordable one day .

 

[TripleBull]

I forget the product Litz mentions in one of his books, maybe it is lidar but it's used in the wind generator industry to help set the pitch of the rotor blades. If we could have that capability on a lightweight, inexpensive, programmable drone that would model the general wind column near your flight path, that would be really great. Actually, you'd probably need a few of them in order to get data close to real time, so they will need to be really cheap. In a research-kind of setting, I'm sure such capability would be valuable in doing post-shot analysis, especially if you coupled to it a target-zone optical sensor and a laser on the weapon that helped to correlate the alignment of the bore when the shot was touched off and during recoil.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

Lidar is fantastic but the "portable" units that can do what the ELR community needs are NOT on the "affordable" side of the spectrum....although there are a few companies that will do short and long term rentals such as ZephIR Lidar.

The "go to" unit for wind farms is the Windcube V2 from Leosphere.

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[flyer]

In astronomy, seeing is measured in a few ways. I think that one way is that they can compare two images taken at different wave length to figure out the conditions. For a scope you might be able to use two lasers of different wave length, maybe IR and UV to generate an aggregate wind condition over the bullet's path.

I'm waiting for a nice simplified electronic scope with a high resolution image sensor, IR sensitivity, digital zoom (no moving parts), a high resolution micro display with computer generated reticles, contrast enhancement, image stabilization and FCG integration like a Tracking Point.

All of those technologies exist and they are not terribly expensive, they just aren't put together yet.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

@flyer "wind condition over the bullets path"....

ITL out of Israel had/has a unit called the "Focus" in which has an integrated laser to measure wind speed but it measures at "laser path" and not bullets path. Are you saying there are lasers that can arch the same as the projectile in flight?

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[flyer]

I wrote that to differentiate between pointing the laser(s) toward the target instead of just any random direction.

 

[TripleBull]

Lidar is fantastic but the "portable" units that can do what the ELR community needs are NOT on the "affordable" side of the spectrum....although there are a few companies that will do short and long term rentals such as ZephIR Lidar.

The "go to" unit for wind farms is the Windcube V2 from Leosphere.

We're visioning here. I'm free to ignore reality in my fantasy world.

Please make this stuff fold up into a tiny laptop-sized brief while you are at it. Pretty please.

Seriously, could we vision the present 50 years ago? Swing for the fences.

Between now and then, think about the pinnacle of physics and engineering and assume it will get smaller and cheaper while getting better.

 

[TripleBull]

In astronomy, seeing is measured in a few ways. I think that one way is that they can compare two images taken at different wave length to figure out the conditions. For a scope you might be able to use two lasers of different wave length, maybe IR and UV to generate an aggregate wind condition over the bullet's path.

I'm waiting for a nice simplified electronic scope with a high resolution image sensor, IR sensitivity, digital zoom (no moving parts), a high resolution micro display with computer generated reticles, contrast enhancement, image stabilization and FCG integration like a Tracking Point.

All of those technologies exist and they are not terribly expensive, they just aren't put together yet.

If you use a UV laser, don't let UV pass unfiltered to your eye. Burn mother eeh-eer.

I expect digital scopes to succeed eventually but the analog system is pretty damn good.

 

[flyer]

Camera sensors are quite a bit better than out eyes and getting better all the time. Optical scopes are designed around our eye.

Once I saw a PDA, I knew smart phones were inevitable.

I've been trying to talk a camera firmware engineer in to breadboarding a digital scope since at least 2014.

I'm sure everything I imagine and more has been integrated in to several military fire control systems, it just needs to be miniaturized to a form factor that fits on a rifle and mass produced so you don't need to be a nation state to afford it.

The reason why it's inevitable is that optics are expensive. If you put the sensor at prime focus, no eyepiece required. If you have no eyepiece, there is no zoom mechanism. If you do a digital superimposed reticle, no turrets and no additional part numbers for SFP, FFP or reticle choices. Reticle illumination is free. Micro-display technology is maturing and cost reducing due to digital cameras, cell phones and smart watches, a digital scope gets to ride that economy of scale for free.

It's all right there for the taking.

 

[TripleBull]

Camera sensors are quite a bit better than out eyes and getting better all the time.

I think such a claim would require extensive qualification. For example, if you'd choose a high end DSLR such as the Nikon D810A body, you'd have a 36MP sensor. (affordable 100MP sensors are not far off and Canon has a 250MP prototype device) Attempts to compare such sensors to the human eye are not straightforward, but you can find estimates for the human eye on the order of 600MP. That's just one aspect of optical specification. Many other specs favor digital devices, such as low light sensitivity of camera sensors. On the other hand, if you pull out the big guns and go for a military or research sensor, digital looks incredible. If you could get access to such capabilities, the cost is huge and would require bulky support electronics, etc.

The eye/brain has "automatic" capabilities that even the best digital devices require some level of operational expertise to equal, for example the interpretation of subtle contrast and shadow in light or dark regions. If you take time to Photoshop digital images, they are awesome, but in real world scenarios, the time and effort to tweak the system would be competing with your window of opportunity to get the shot off. Your eye/brain may be more limited in some aspects, but it is automatically self-optimizing, so you get to focus your attention on the shooting.

I've worked with modern research & military sensors that represent at least the fringe of the state of the art and I find your quote above, to be very misleading in the context of what we can expect out of a digital rifle scope in the next decade or two - maybe three. I hope I'm wrong - the low light advantage of digital sensors could be huge for hunting or military / LEO applications, but it's got to be a video capability and that stresses current portable sensor image processing.

It's all right there for the taking.

Maybe someday, but I don't agree we're anywhere close to plug and play on this.

 

[damoncali]

Food for thought: If you have a digital scope, you've removed the requirement to place your eye behind it, which opens up the range of possible positions to shoot from. Does a digital scope that looks like an optical scope even make sense? I'm reminded of early firearms - which looked a lot like swords and spears. It took a while for engineers to figure out that they were fundamentally different weapons.

 

[flyer]

A 36mp DSLR sensor would be a poor choice for a digital scope. Too much data to manipulate and the pixels aren't big enough to have really good high speed low light capability.

There are industrial/astronomy sensors that are much better for the job.

Our eyes do have better resolution but they have a much wider FOV. The micro-display for a digital scope could be something like 1,000x1,000 pixels with a 120hz refresh. Our eyes would be fine with that.

I think a fairly straight forward ARM core or other low power processor with a GPU would have enough processing power to do everything that's needed but a scope that needs a battery is another hurdle to get over.

But it is right there. Right now.

 

[TripleBull]

The micro-display for a digital scope could be something like 1,000x1,000 pixels with a 120hz refresh. Our eyes would be fine with that.

Poor choice for a sensor? You said camera sensors are better than our eyes but now you are talking about using a 1MP display. Dunno about you but when I shoot ELR, I want to see fine detail for small targets, read mirage, etc. 1MP is not adequate.

 

[flyer]

You need more resolution in your sensor than in your display, for zoom among other things.

Doing things like image stabilization and contrast enhancement will make up for the supposed lack of resolution.

Check out the digital view finders that get built in to MILC cameras, that's what we have to work with on the rifle. You could do a higher resolution external display but the ergonomics seem wrong to me.

As far as camera sensors being better than the eye, maybe but the industrial sensors for machine vision and similar tasks are a lot better because they go for light sensitivity and frame rate instead of pixel count.

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

So in regards to digital scopes, etc....

Wouldn't it be pretty easy to "weaponize" this scope? It would bring into account for the ability to change shooting positions as damoncali mentioned previously.

https://www.pyseroptics.com/product/proms-2/

Sincerely,
Theis

 

[Bigwheels]

Perhaps a baby step in the making?
http://www.revicoptics.com/product/pmr-smart-scope-rifle/
Just saw an ad for this on a hunting show and thought it was kinda cool.

 

[flyer]

Maybe but to me, the key is making it retail sporting goods rather than military. It should start at less than $2,000 and would be even better if it could hit $999.99.

That thing looks like if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

 

[flyer]

The Revic is cool but they don't have an encoder for windage. You're still paying for a lot of scope too.

 

[TripleBull]

A $1K scope is not going to have the optical quality required for most ELR shooters...

 

[flyer]

You would be surprised with what you can get if you don't need zoom, a reticle, turrets, eyepiece or military contracts.

A $100 cell phone probably has enough compute power to do everything it needs, let's say it costs $250 in low volume with good potting to make it vibration and water resistant. That leaves $750 for the sensor and lens system. Since you're dealing with a camera sensor that is more light sensitive than an eye and less transmission loss due to glass/air interfaces (because there are fewer) you might be able to use a 40mm lens instead of 56mm.

I got a pair of 10x40 binoculars with ED lenses for about $200. That ED glass objective with all the coatings and everything probably costs less than $60.

Add an image sensor for $100-150, $50 worth of electronic focuser (with hundreds of points phase change autofocus) and $30 worth of housing.

Paying quite a bit for the electronics, the BOM could be $500-550. Make a whole bunch the price of electronics goes down and $999.99 is possible if you do a direct sales type of distribution.

Adding the lasers and wind measuring would add to the cost but that could be Gen II for $1,499.99 until that cost gets pushed down.

 

[TripleBull]

Regardless of your arguments, I stand by my statement that a $1K scope is not going to have the optical quality required for most ELR shooters. Look around this sub-forum and see what products are commonly in use. If you are thinking that digital zoom in the answer, your system will need boatload of excess pixel density.

What scope are you currently using for ELR and what are the distances you shoot?

 

[flyer]

I shoot 1,000 yards occasionally with a Minox ZA5 6-30x56.

Not terribly fancy but it seems to get the job done. I have it on a 20 MOA base and it's getting close to using all the elevation at 1,000 yards so not great for ELR but it's not what I would put in a digital scope.

I think I paid a little under $800 for it a few years ago.

A friend of mine has a Night Force scope which might be a little better optically but not by much. It has way more elevation.

Why do you need to spend big bucks if you don't have to?

You seem to pay a lot for crisp clicks and zero stops, if you can build a scope without that, you'll get similar quality at a lower cost.

 

[diverdon]

I don't know if I will ever buy another piece of that kind of equipment. If I do it will have a well written through manual that I can download read study and understand before I decide if I want one or not. I already have an Applied Ballistics Kestral that is completly useless to me because I can not figure out how to use it in the real world. (Yes I know, it is easy for others.) By contrast the Rianof Eagle is easy to get good results with because it comes with a good manual.

You would not only have to show me that your equipment could do it, but that I could easily use the equipment to do those things in the field.

If I had Bill Gates money and wanted to build such a thing I would design a HUD in the bottom third of the scope, I would have a control unit built like a pilots stick with thumb wheels and clickers to scroll and select features. I would make sure to include (a la Nikon) a two button global reset for those times when I could not remember what settings I had screwed up.

A nice supplementary feature would be if it included an electronic log book and an easy way to down load data and shot placement after each shot. It would also be nice if their was a website where one could upload the data either to store it of to share it with other users.

But, I do not have Bill Gates money so it will be interesting to see what you come up with.

 

[flyer]

Of course, user interface is crucial but if you can eliminate the hang up of looking through an optical system, you can do stuff like record every shot you take. It would give a whole new meaning to DOPE, miss a shot, let's look at the tape.

 

[TripleBull]

Why do you need to spend big bucks if you don't have to?

I'm not advocating for frivolous spending, but have found that excellent optics are not cheap.

You seem to pay a lot for crisp clicks and zero stops,

What optics have I bought that you are basing that comment on?

if you can build a scope without that, you'll get similar quality at a lower cost.

i won't hold my breath on that.

 

[LastShot300]

Since for the time being the use of optronics is out of the question for the reasons given so far, why not concetrate on what we'd like to see on the system proposed by the OP? I think it is a great design with a tremendous potential, all those critical elements working together into a single package ready to calculate a fire solution in a split second and basically capable of doing this with any scope already on the market. Personally I would love to see it coming down right now

 

[TripleBull]

why not concetrate on what we'd like to see on the system proposed by the OP?

Agreed. Dat horsie be dead.

One simple request - a ULR rangefinder with an optic able to select tiny features at target distance. I could always lay down $3K for a zeiss or other binocular LRF I guess, but I'd like even more than 10X. I recently picked up an geared pan head for LRF and Labradar positional tweeking:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1124273-REG/manfrotto_mhxpro_3wg_xpro_geared_3_way.html