Question

recently i rewatched the movie "The Iron Man" (just felt like doing it after watching 'The Avengers') and noticed that in it there was shown some missile which chases down its target.(target which is running/flying ,of course).i recognized that this kind of weapon is very common in sci-fi movies..is there really such kind of technology or was it just a sci-fi stunt? i mean how will a missile be made which chases it target.what will the missile's sensor use to detect which the target is if the target runs into some kinda of a crowded place which has people which are similar as the target??

Answer 1

usualy thermal sensors that's why missle decoys work, they are often phosphorus and magnesimu to give intensive heat source for missle to follow

Answer 2

there are heat seeking missiles which would chase a human if it is the source that gives of the most heat... But a missile that is able to find a specific target in a crowd? That's not possible, yet...

Answer 3

Target tracking missels are indeed a reality. There are various types.

There are heat tracking missels which follow the heat signature of a vehicle. This type if popular in air-to-air combat as jet fighters have a large "heat signature" due to the turbine engine.

There are also laser guided missels. These are popular in air-to-ground applications. A troop on the ground designates the target with a special laser device. The missels locks on and hits the target.

There are numerous other tracking methods. You can read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_guidance

Answer 4

@eashmore but none of them are able to lock onto a target and keep it in sight when the target is in a crowd of people right? i mean.. how would it differentiate between all of them?

Answer 5

@eashmore : so there are such things but the movie exxagerated them??

Answer 6

We may be close to that. We have developed "fire and forget" missels which can track targets via radar, GPA, and optical sensors.

I know for a fact that on a tank's targeting system, you can mark a target, be it a human, another tank, or vehicle, and the software and sensors are able to track that target regardless of your vehicles or the target's relative motion. The tank's gun will remain on target as long as the target is being tracked. It's really cool stuff. This technology works in large crowds too. Consider that this technology is being used in the urban environment of Iraq. The system can track friend and foe as well.

This could theoretically be applied to missels. If you can track a target and keep a gun barrel pointed at it, why can't you communicate the same information to a missel and have it track the same target?

Let me provide the closest example of tracking a target by a missel. Lockheed Martin, an American based defense company, has developed a missel that, with the help of ground based radar stations, can track, intercept, and destroy ballistic missels IN MID AIR!!

Indeed, we may not have missels that are smart enough to track a single human in a dense crowd, but we are damn close.

Answer 7

thanx everyone ,especially @eashmore ..it was really helpful.

Answer 8

yeah @eashmore has got a lot of information. I just thought those sci-fi movies were totally useless with no genuine information (or anything that's real) in them but now it seems as if they are not all useless...

Answer 9

If anything Sci-Fi movies give us something to strive for. They have some really cool ideas.

Answer 10

@ujjwal never think that.. almost anything in sf movies is based on science that already excist.. they just take the science we already know into the future. There are, of course, things that might never be possible but that doesn't mean those things are useless... Also, it's not just sf movies.. The harry potter movies have inspired many to try to make an invisibility cloak and they are getting closer every day; and Microsoft is currently working on a clock which doesn't tell time but, instead, tells where people are... as Eashmore said, movies give us scientist things to strive for, ideas to work on and hope that one day we can do things we never thought possible

Answer 11

I wonder if harry potter has inspired scientists to think about tele-porting!

Answer 12

@ujjwal ; i think people are working on that too..yeah some of them may be just stunts like The Hulk which of course is against the law of conservation of energy etc..but others like Iron man are really fun and gives ideas to think upon..

Answer 13

To add to eashmore's comments, I've personally had an unarmed a MK38MOD2 chain gun track me inside an arena during a demonstration at work. This was while I was standing among about a dozen other people...and it didn't flinch when I moved around. It worked off heat signatures and was very cool but a bit scary at the same time.

Answer 14

There are indeed people working on teleporting but I don't think this was inspired by hp.. there is a lot of teleporting in earlier movies and the series doctor who was decades earlier with the teleporting and time traveling idea.. The mechanical heart from iron man is also being researched, though the fake heart looks a lot less cool and a lot more like a real heart.. Suits like iron man are also being build and many, many more projects around the world are based on comic books, tv shows and movies.. I can't remember what it's called but there is a site which is dedicated to gathering all those research projects..