The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Lockheed Martin a $3.93 million contract to develop a rifle-scope attachment that will enhance soldiers' marksmanship capabilities. I said awarded because gave or received just doesn't sound pompous enough given the amount of money. DInGO is short for Dynamic Image Gunsight Optic, namely a system that will allow soldiers to efficiently see targets at varying distances, without changing scopes or suffering a decrease in optical resolution, and thus enabling their capacity to properly hit targets at ranges between 3 and 600 meters.

"Current scopes are optimized for a single target range, impacting soldiers' effectiveness and survivability when engaging targets at different distances during a single mission," said Dan Schultz, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems & Sensors Ship & Aviation Systems business. "DInGO will solve this problem, significantly increasing soldiers' ability to rapidly reconfigure optics for use from short to long ranges and improving marksmanship capabilities for all soldiers."

DInGO is such an advanced system, it actually sports a low power laser rangefinder to automatically calculate the range, and digitally zoom in on it, as well as accounting for environmental conditions, like wind thanks to sensors inside the scope, and projects the bullet's point-of-impact after it has calculated it using the built-in ballistics computer.

The DInGO itself is built around the company's One Shot Advanced Sighting System, which takes advantage of a similar precision engagement technology for automatic crosswind transmit information for a long-range sniper scope, and that can modify the crosshairs and display exactly where the bullet will hit.

The contract implies that Lockheed Martin will be implementing the DInGO system to work on the M-4 and M-16 automatic rifles, with work done at the company's Akron, Ohio site, known for its strong track record in designing laser technology for ship and airborne infrared counter-measurements, communications, wind correction and active sensing.


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