The Science Behind Smart Guns
Smart guns are coming into the news recently with several
states trying to introduce legislation to require all new handguns to be “Smart
Guns”. An example of a smart gun was
recently seen in the James Bond movie Skyfall
when the British intelligence scientists gave James Bond a hand gun that only
he could fire. This ID verification is
what a smart gun is designed to do; use biometric or radio frequency ID (RFID)
to identify the shooter and only function when the authorized shooter tries to
fire the hand gun. The perceived benefit
of smart guns is that a criminal could not steal a gun and fire it or a young
child could not hurt themselves firing a gun they find in the home.
There are currently two main types of smart guns
currently being developed and companies hope they will be available to the
public soon but in the meantime they are still working out the design bugs and
testing. The first type of smart gun
uses biometrics and the second uses radio frequency to verify the ID of the
shooter.
Dynamic biometric smart guns
Dynamic biometric smart guns use the handgun’s owner’s
physical features to only allow them to fire the handgun. The physical features could include
fingerprints, voice recognition, retina scanners or even the way a user grips
the gun. By using one or a combination
of these techniques the safety on the gun is deactivated and the user can shoot
the gun. This type of identification
process is still in development by gun manufacturers and it will take quite some
time to perfect and error proof for use.
The second type of smart gun identification methods is to
use radio frequency. For this method to
work the owner is required to wear an ID chip somewhere on their person that
allows them to use the gun. This chip
can be on a watch, ring or a piece of clothing but must be present or the gun
will not fire.
Smart guns are still in development by several
manufacturers but one company has broken out onto this new market, Armatix. The Armatix handgun uses RFID and has a chip
embedded in a watch that communicates with the handgun. When the watch is close a green indicator
comes on saying the gun is ready to shoot, if the indicator is red the gun
cannot be fired. Additional manufacturers
are testing the smart gun technology to make sure that it will be completely
reliable in the field and will soon catch up with the Armatix model.
For more information:
http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/smart-gun/
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/smart-guns/818/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-smart-gun-come-america-205914675.html
