Method and device for marking ammunition for identification or tracking

Abstract

A method of providing a mark to a case of a cartridge of ammunition. The mark includes at least one sub-mark and is suitable for identification and/or for tracking of the cartridge. At least one indenter selectively radially indents a circumferential surface of a bottom of the case, thereby forming the at least one sub-mark.

Claims

1. Method of providing a mark to a case of a cartridge of ammunition, the mark comprising at least one sub-mark and the mark being suitable for identification or for tracking of the cartridge, the method comprising: selectively radially indenting a circumferential surface of a bottom of the case using an indenter in the form of a compression finger, thereby forming the at least one sub-mark, wherein indenting the circumferential surface comprises locally stressing the circumferential surface of the case beyond its elastic limit so that an inelastic deformation is achieved, wherein the at least one indenter is moveable by an actuator from an idle position to an active position for forming the at least one sub-mark in the bottom of the case.

2. Method of claim 1, wherein the mark comprises a plurality of sub-marks.

3. Method of claim 1, wherein the sub-mark comprises at least one of a material displacement, a deformation, and a hole.

4. Method of claim 1, wherein the mark provides information on the basis of at least one of: an absolute position of the at least one sub-mark on the case, a relative position of the at least one sub-mark with respect to at least one further sub-mark, the existence or non-existence of the at least one sub-mark at a predetermined position, a depth of the at least one sub-mark on the case, a width of the at least one sub-mark, and a modulation in depth and/or width of the at least one sub-mark.

5. Method of claim 1, wherein the case comprises a case material, and the at least one indenter comprises a material that is harder than the case material.

6. Method of claim 1, wherein the active position of the indenter is variable and a depth of the at least one sub-mark on the case is modulated by varying the active position of the indenter.

7. Method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of indenters selectively radially indent a circumferential surface of the bottom.

8. Method of claim 1, further comprising a computer system controlling the at least one indenter and a position of the cartridge in order to generate the mark as a predetermined mark on the cartridge.

9. Device of claim 1, wherein the active position of indenter is variable.

10. Device for providing a mark to a case of a cartridge of ammunition, the mark comprising at least one sub-mark and being suitable for identification or for tracking of the cartridge, the device comprising: at least one indenter in the form of the compression finger configured for selectively radially indenting a circumferential surface of the bottom of the case, thereby forming the at least one sub-mark, wherein the device is configured for carrying out the method of claim 1.

11. Device for providing a mark to a case of a cartridge of ammunition, the mark comprising at least one sub-mark and being suitable for identification or for tracking of the cartridge, the device comprising: at least one indenter in the form of a compression finger configured for selectively radially indenting a circumferential surface of a bottom of the case, for thereby forming the at least one sub-mark, an actuator configured for moving the at least one indenter between an idle position, in which the indenter does not interact with the case, and an active position, in which the indenter interacts with the case to form the at least one sub-mark, wherein indenting the circumferential surface comprises locally stressing the circumferential surface of the case beyond its elastic limit so that an inelastic deformation is achieved.

12. Device of claim 11, wherein the at least one indenter comprises a plurality of indenters configured for selectively radially indenting a circumferential surface of the bottom of the case for thereby forming a plurality of the sub-marks.

13. Device of claim 11, further comprising a computer system configured for controlling the at least one indenter and configured for positioning the cartridge for generating a predetermined mark on the cartridge.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is a bottom view of a case of a cartridge of ammunition that illustrates a preferred method in accordance with aspects of the disclosure.

(2) FIG. 2 is a side view of the case of the cartridge of FIG. 1, illustrating a portion of the case in accordance with aspects of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE DISCLOSURE

(3) FIG. 1 illustrates a preferred method for providing a mark to a case 13 of a cartridge of ammunition. The mark comprises a plurality of sub-marks 12 which are applied to the case 13 by, in the illustrated embodiment, a plurality of indenters, e.g., compression fingers 10, which are structured and arranged to selectively radially indent a circumferential surface of a bottom 20 of the case 13.

(4) The bottom view of the case 13 of FIG. 1 shows the bottom surface of the case 13 by which the firing pin of a gun activates the primer in the case 13 to ignite the propellant and, optionally, fire the projectile. The bottom of the case 13 is located at the end of the cartridge opposite to any projectile. This bottom surface of the case 13 can, in addition to the marks of present disclosure, be marked by a head stamp in the usual manner, as known from the prior art. Such a head stamp is, however, not illustrated in FIG. 1.

(5) FIG. 1 illustrates that a circumference of the bottom 20 forms a circle, if no indentation is applied. At certain positions along the circumference, compression fingers 10 are illustrated as indenting the circumferential surface of the bottom 20, which surface cannot be seen in FIG. 1, to thereby form sub-marks 12. In FIG. 1, eight equally circumferentially distanced compression fingers 10 are illustrated. However, the method can be carried out by use of a single compression finger 10 or almost any higher number of compression fingers 10 with regular or irregular, fixed or variable circumferential distances to each other.

(6) As can be seen in FIG. 1, at selected positions along the circumference, sub-marks are applied or not-applied by the compression fingers 10. In the example of FIG. 1, eight predetermined positions exist for forming a sub-mark or not, namely, the angular positions of the compression fingers 10. Whether or not a sub-mark exists at these respective predetermined positions is used to encode information to the case 13 via the mark for identification and/or tracking of the cartridge. At the angular position 14 on the circumferential surface of the bottom 20, a compression finger 10 is present and could indent the surface for forming a sub-mark. However, in the situation illustrated in FIG. 1, no sub-mark 12 is formed at this position 14 so that the non-existence of a sub-mark at this position can be detected by a respective detector.

(7) By using predetermined positions for the sub-marks, it is possible to encode information, e.g. on the basis of the binary system, also on the basis of non-existing indentations at one or more of these positions.

(8) However, in addition to simply detecting whether or not a sub-mark is present at a certain predetermined position on the surface of the case 13, it is also possible to vary the shape of the sub-mark 12, in particular the depth of the indentation, to thereby add further degrees of freedom in order to increase the information density of the mark.

(9) FIG. 1 illustrates, of the compression fingers 10, a plurality of (e.g., four) active compression fingers 11.1, as well as a plurality of (e.g., three) idle compression fingers 11.2. While the active compression fingers 11.1 are illustrated to indent and form a respective sub-mark 12, the idle compression fingers 11.2 are not in contact with the case 13.

(10) A preferred device for carrying out the method illustrated in FIG. 1 comprises a plurality of compression fingers 10, which, by use of actuators 30 (only one of which is schematically depicted in FIG. 1), can be moved between an idle position and at least one active position. In order to increase the number of degrees of freedom and, thereby, the information density of the mark, it is further preferred that the actuators are configured for moving the compression fingers 10 between an idle position and a variable active position. The variable active position can be a plurality of stepwise differing active positions or a continuously varying active position.

(11) Preferably, the actuators of the compression fingers 10, in particular if there is more than one compression finger 10 involved, are controlled by a computer system that is configured to coordinate the compression fingers and the position and orientation of the cartridge and its case 13. Thereby, a preferred method can be realized in a very efficient way, wherein a plurality of sub-marks 12 can be applied to the case 13 simultaneously.

(12) FIG. 2 is a side view of the case 13 and illustrates the bottom 20 of the case 13 as a portion of the case 13 and an extractor groove 21.

(13) This portion of the case 13 usually contains parts of the primer. However, in the context of the present disclosure, this portion of the cartridge, i.e. the bottom 20 and, preferably, also the extractor groove 21, is considered to be the bottom 20 of the case 13.