#1198: Smartshield

Armored vehicles, such as the bulletproof vehicles used by heads of state are often equipped with reactive armour. When a missile makes an impact, this detonates a surface charge on the vehicle, potentially nullifying the attack.

Today’s invention takes this a step further. When two or more impacts have occurred on such a target, an on-board computer records these and calculates where the most likely subsequent hit will occur (linear extrapolation would be a good first guess).

At this location, reactive armour can become proactive. This might involve firing a shield mechanism so that impact occurs between shield and missile at a greater stand-off distance from the vehicle body (or, it might be possible to populate the outer vehicle surface with protective plates capable of being moved rapidly across it, by a magnetic field pulse, to provide local reinforcement).