"Fifty percent of kills happen on the corners," according to SmartSight inventor Matthew Hagerty. And his creation—a rifle sight camera that wirelessly transmits real-time video back to its soldier—will help ensure that our soldiers win those battles.


The 1.5 pound camera—attached to an M4 or .308 SOCOM carbine—transmits video to a display attached to a soldier's protective glasses:

Miniaturizing the hardware found in news broadcasting equipment, Hagerty devised a way to beam live, uncompressed high-quality video from the 1.5-pound camera at a speedy 30 frames per second; meanwhile, custom software overlays the shooter's red target dot in the head-up display so that the view appears exactly as it does through the gun's conventional scope, all with no delay.


In total, the prototype weighs just three pounds.

The benefits for urban warfare—just the type that we've been entrenched in the last several years—are immediate, but the deliver of the SmartSight isn't, quite. Hagerty still wants to make it lighter, and Special Ops testing won't begin until next year. [Pop Sci, photo credit: John B. Carnett]