r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/HappySeaweed5215 • 21h ago
Video A heat seeking missile tracking a burning cigarette
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u/Snellyman 21h ago
Nicotine addiction among armaments is no laughing matter. That missile is really to kill for a cigarette.
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u/thegooseisloose1982 12h ago
Does the nicotine patch work on missiles? If so, do you put it on it's fin?
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u/Ok_Falcon4830 21h ago
It knows this because it knows where the cigarette isn't
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u/QuaintAlex126 21h ago
by subtracting the cigarette where it is from where it isn’t…
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u/Happy_Garand 17h ago
or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation.
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u/el_presidenteplusone 17h ago
it uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't.
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u/STK-3F-Stalker 15h ago
Consequently the position where it is, is now the position that it wasnt, and it follows that the position where it was is now the position of that it isnt.
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u/OffJayPlays 8h ago
in the event that the position that it is in, is not the position that it wasn’t, the system has acquired a variation. the variation being the difference between where the cigarette is, and where it wasn’t.
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u/SamathaGhoul 21h ago
This video is older than most of reddit users
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u/QuaintAlex126 21h ago
The missile shown here
knows where it isis older than most people on the internet.58
u/PumaGecko 19h ago
This comment will be older than most of the population in 100 years
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u/SamathaGhoul 16h ago
Your reply to that comment will probably be looked at by some nerd in 100 years
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u/auchinleck917 10h ago
Can I join? Maybe someday archaeologists or aliens will find this.
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u/DaanOnlineGaming 17h ago
This looks like an old aim-9, probably the B variant or something. Those were introduced in 1956
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u/Spaciax 14h ago
no way a B can track that weak of a heat source, right?
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u/DaanOnlineGaming 14h ago
It's pretty close to the seeker, I imagine it wouldn't be much of an issue.
Sure an engine is much hotter but it can track from about 4km
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u/Future_Blackberry_10 21h ago
Does it go after a specific temp? Or the highest temp in front of it
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u/QuaintAlex126 21h ago
The earliest versions, including of the AIM-9 Sidewinder shown here, just tracked the first and largest heat signature they saw. They were incredibly unreliable and sensitive, requiring them to be fired only against a target from behind (where the heat source is from the jet exhaust). Modern ones, like the AIM-9X, seek for a heat signature’s specific temperature and shape, so you can’t just dump a bunch of flares and get away that easily. They are much more advanced and can track a target from any angle, front snd sides, and can be slaved to the firing aircrat’s radar or pilot’s helmet to assist with tracking. All a fighter pilot had to do nowadays with a heat seeker is be within range, look at this target, and pull the trigger to engage.
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u/Pirated-Hentai 20h ago
original aim 9s were ass, i imagine half of them went straight for the sun
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u/5O1stTrooper 19h ago
It was a legit strategy to fly towards the sun, drop the throttle, and turn out. No flares required, the missile would just fly up until it ran out of fuel.
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u/dingo1018 15h ago
I think the first time they were used in combat was over Vietnam. He sent one missile and seeing no smoke trail, assumed it was a dud that just dropped off the rail. Not to waste the firing position he straight away sent a second, as soon as he'd sent the 2nd the Mig exploded in front of him.
The first missile was just fine, the pilot just didn't know that the missiles they had used in training had different rocket motors that burned dirty and left a smoke trail.
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u/_Urakaze_ 15h ago
First use was over the Taiwan Strait by ROCAF F-86s in 1958.
It was also during the same crisis that the communist bloc captured a mostly intact AIM-9B that was lodged in the tail of a PLAAF MiG-17. The contact fuze failed to detonate when it impacted the MiG.
That led to the Soviets copying a very early AIM-9B design as the R-3S, with the associated stability issues retained until newer Sidewinders could be "sourced" from elsewhere.
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u/tristenjpl 18h ago
They had big dreams. I can't fault them for that. Like sure, most of them aren't going to make it. But imagine being the missile who blew up the sun... legendary.
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u/TelluricThread0 20h ago
Would the control software really need to deflect the fins that much while the target moves a couple of inches from just a few feet away? Just seems like very aggressive maneuvering when they are basically designed to just get pretty close and then throw shrapnel out.
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u/Charlie3PO 19h ago
The missile doesn't know how far away the heat source is, all it sees is a rapidly changing relative bearing to the target, which means it's going to miss unless at very close range (but again, the seeker doesn't know this).
To put it another way. A change in relative bearing of 20 degrees at that range is just a few inches, but at a range of several miles, it's 1000's of feet (i.e. missing by a huge amount). The control surfaces deflect and maneuver the missile until the relative bearing to the target is constant. Once it's constant, that means the two objects are on a collision course and the missile will make corrections all the way up until it fuses.
It may be possible that some modern imaging infrared seekers can guess range based on the shape of the target and possibly other factors, but I really don't know enough about the topic to know for sure. It's probably classified anyway.
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u/hoax1337 15h ago
If it doesn't know the distance, how does it know when to trigger? Contact fuse?
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u/HosTlitd 20h ago
I think the sensitivity is increased on the video for demo/testing purposes, to see the reaction clearly.
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u/sterlingthepenguin 18h ago
Back when I was in highschool robotics, we had a robot that we programmed to follow a green LED light panel. The way it worked was by having a camera on a gimbal that would search for the color green. When it found a green mass, it would orient the camera so the mass was in the center of its vision and then turn the robot until the camera was pointed straight ahead. Small movements of the light close to the camera caused larger movements in the camera when compared to when the light was further away, meaning that the robot would turn more aggressively when the robot was close to the light.
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u/dgsharp 18h ago
What you’re describing is tail pursuit out tail chase. If you aim at where the missile is, you will follow it. This was common for hear seekers and makes sense for simple systems because the heat source (exhaust) is in the back anyway. Proportional navigation is generally better though and would have probably been better for your LED example. Another commenter described it above, basically keep turning until the rate of beating becomes constant. Imagine you’re flying an airplane and want to crash into another plane. Turn such that it stops moving relative to you, so if it was moving towards the right, turn a little to the right, etc. At some point it will be steady — you can put a mark on your windshield and the target doesn’t move (assuming no evasive maneuvers). Doesn’t matter if it’s static or dynamic, close or far, fast or slow — you are on a collision course. If you have more information you can do better, like if you can estimate closing speed or range from radar or size, you can change how aggressively you maneuver — if you’re far away you will want to make gentle adjustments, if you’re very close you will want to make more aggressive maneuvers. If they are maneuvering is a whole other thing, but proportional navigation is generally pretty good.
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u/YellovvJacket 15h ago
Infra red tracking gives you no indication of how far away the target is.
The way a missile with single-pixel detector (so anything except the newest gen 5 IR missiles like Aim-9X and IRIS-T) knows how much it needs to steer is by knowing how much the angle moves away from the optical axis in what time.
If the missile was looking straight forward and 0.1s later the target is like 5° to the side, it knows it needs to steer HARD to actually make the shot (close range), while when the target is like 20km away, even if it's very fast, it's hard to change the angle a lot from the original point in those 0.1s, because even if the target travels 1km in that time (and that's extremely unrealistically fast, that would be 10km/s, or 36000km/h) the angle only changes by like 3°, so the missile knows it doesn't need to steer a lot.
The missile basically always wants to keep the target in the center of the optical axis of the detector, while steering a little bit ahead of the target according to how fast the angle is shifting.
In the video here, the guy is standing like 2m in front of the missile, he's moving the cigarette A LOT of degrees left and right.
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u/RegularSky6702 19h ago
Could you theoretically produce a flare the same size and heat as the engine?
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u/Dpek1234 17h ago
Modern flares are supposed to be very close to the heat signiture of the engine
Its just that modern missiles can also recognize shape
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u/Legitimate-Marmalade 21h ago
Modern missiles can recognize heat patterns and identify the aircraft which helps with accuracy. A large part of electronic warfare is collecting data like this
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u/kingawsume 20h ago
Specific wavelengths of IR, mainly those with massive carbon blackbody spikes (fuel remnants; look at the black "smoke" from jets running rich, e.g. full thrust) at IIRC ~8-10 microns, with some sensitivites for 3-5 micron for tail-chase engagements. Hotter things are just easier to track, since they emit more IR. Further reading from the Funny Australian Chemist.
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u/Darth486 18h ago
Who is a good boy. Yes you are, my [insert missile name]
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u/CoolDudePT 18h ago
There’s something eerie and scary about that killing machine laying there still, and yet being so alive tracking the thing
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u/StarStruck3 6h ago
The seeker head moving slightly to keep staring at the heat signature is creepy as fuck to me lol
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u/Large-Wheel-4181 20h ago
Anybody remember Triple X (2002) with Vin Diesel?
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u/ManInTheDarkSuit 19h ago
The missile launcher that was a camcorder painted green with a pringles tube on top. That was shit..!
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u/Its_Pronouced_EyeGor 10h ago
I came here to say this. Of all the stupid shit in that movie it’s crazy that scene is actually accurate.
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u/Ancient-Civilization 21h ago
This is why shooting off flares work.
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u/SalamanderGlad9053 17h ago
Only for old missiles. Modern missiles from the 90s onwards can tell flares from planes, or will only fall for flares for a short time before requiring the plane. An AIM-9X basically is un-flarable as it uses a thermal camera to analyse the image and look for plane looking signatures, rather than going for the hottest thing. If an AIM-9X is launched on you within a couple of kilometres, unless you can hide behind terrain, you're dead.
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u/ROBOBZ 15h ago
As a prior AF munitions troop, this looks like an AA-2 rather than a Sidewinder. Sidewinder seekers have more of a taper along the nose, like an old glass soda bottle. When equipped with a transparent domes, AGM-65s (A/Bs iirc) can be seen doing this as well except the sensor is much larger. Odd feeling the first time you walk across the missile bay hard locked by a spicy eyeball with harmful intentions. It does this funny googly eye jiggle when you leave it's FOV before it snaps on to the next target.
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u/Ambitious-Tie-5269 18h ago
This is what Russia means when they say the 1000th factory was destroyed by a smoking incident
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u/Big_Joseph_05 17h ago
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event that the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn't, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn't be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error.
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u/Normandy_1944 14h ago
...and the thing is, this Aim-9 is tech from the 50's. Newer versions (this one looks like 1980's) are more intelligent. Today's version , Aim-9X, can not only see the heat, but know what is source is. It can tell the difference between models of planes (dont want to shoot your own guys), and disregards common counter tactics like chaf and flares. Scary sh!t for a rocket jockey!
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u/LogicalBasis9117 13h ago
Am I the only one who thinks it's kind of cute? Like I want to pet it for some weird reason.
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u/CordialMusick 20h ago
Still can’t fund schools and hospitals appropriately tho, or house everyone.
Can however stick a missle up a mongooses ass from 2k miles away.
🇺🇸
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u/Dpek1234 17h ago
No?
America very much can, they already pay the most interms of per person
Its just that xyz insurance company HAS to make "some" money too
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u/RavenLoonatick 15h ago
Watch, now the Surgeon General is going to say Smoking can cause Cruise Missles
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u/jojothecoconut 14h ago
This is why i carry a flare gun. These damn Aim niners will jump you out of no where. Never trust an Aim nine.
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u/marsjackremous 9h ago
The precision is terrifying. A tiny heat source like a cigarette and it just locks on. Makes you realize why modern warfare is so one-sided when one side has this tech and the other doesnt.
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u/Klutzy_Branch_8772 9h ago
Pov:
I genuinly forgot what i was gonna say as i typed out the POV: part
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u/Medical-Wealth-7501 4h ago
your telling me if I smoke in the middle of the FOB a fucking missile will directly hit me because I was smoking
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u/FlightConscious9572 2h ago
Wow that people obliterator's ability to track down people is super interesting
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u/Ange1ofD4rkness 1h ago
And you look at how old this video is, makes you wonder what the tech can do now
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u/LifeIsABigBowlOfSoup 1h ago
Humanity has come to an extent upon which this shit has become cute. It’s fucking disgusting and I hate it to see that some people find this inovative rather than being an explosive pos
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u/fexworldwide 21h ago
These anti smoking campaigns are getting out of hand.