Riflescopes have been used for well over a century and while the quality and features of these devices have improved tremendously over the years, the core components (and the limitations of those components) used in their design, manufacture and use are still very much the same today as they were 100 years ago. Riflescopes create a magnified or unmagnified image of a scene that is distant from the shooter on a focal plane, which is coincident with an aiming feature, or reticle. The reticle consists of wire or a material deposited in a pattern onto a glass surface and it is used as an aiming reference, which corresponds to the trajectory of the rifle to which it's attached. The reticle may also have specific features included to aid the shooter in making distance judgements and in compensating for bullet deviation at different distances.
Turrets are also used to make adjustments to the reticle position in relation to the target in order to compensate for bullet deviation. This is a very developed and reliable system that can be used in the hands of the experienced and skilled shooter to make challenging long range shots. With the aid of a laser rangefinder (LRF) and a ballistic computer and careful attention to detail, an experienced shooter can routinely hit targets at the maximum effective range of their firearm by making the necessary mechanical adjustments to the firearm and/or executing the correct holds on the reticle pattern.
While this system performs well, there is always a desire to improve upon the system. In particular, there is a desire to reduce the complexity involved in hitting long range targets. A large amount of information is needed on a shot-by-shot basis in order to effectively hit long range targets and the shooter must be able to process this information and make the correct judgments and calculations in real time. In addition to the riflescope, other tools are needed by the shooter to ensure accurate shot placement. For instance, a bubble level mounted externally to the riflescope is needed to ensure that the optic is level before executing a shot. This requires the shooter to remove his head from the pupil of the optic to check his or her level.
A laser rangefinder and ballistic computer are also needed to measure target range and calculate a bullet trajectory. This once again requires the shooter to attend to an external device and then remember the data when making the necessary adjustments. If a weapon mounted laser rangefinder is used, then the shooter needs to take special care to ensure that the aiming point of the optic is corresponding exactly with the aiming point of the LRF.
Additionally, and not trivial to the use of riflescopes, is that they are only useful during daylight hours. Once night begins to descend, thermal and/or night vision devices must be attached to the weapon in front of the riflescope. These devices capture other forms of radiation that are not visible to the human eye due to their wavelength or low intensity. These devices then either recreate the image of the scene or intensify it and reimage the scene into the objective of the riflescope. Effective and necessary for low light conditions, these devices are also heavy and large.
In the particular case of thermal imaging devices, a thermal scene is imaged via infrared optics onto a special thermal sensor. The image is then recreated on a micro display and the micro display is, in turn, reimaged into the objective of the riflescope with a visible optics system. The two separate optical systems required to accomplish this result in a rather large, heavy, and expensive device.
As technology advances, there is a need for some level of system integration in order to reduce the heavy processing requirements placed on the shooter. This integration is also required to decrease the “time to engagement” that is traditionally quite long when multiple devices have to be referenced and calculations and adjustments have to be made. And finally, the size and weight of additional devices needed for effective use of the riflescope in low light conditions can be reduced with a more integrated solution.
Previous devices have attempted to address some of these issues in different ways with varying degrees of success. However, all attempts prior have implemented their solutions in the Second Focal Plane of the optic. This is very disadvantageous because the second focal plane in a riflescope is only well correlated to the image of the scene at a single magnification setting. The location of the aiming point is only accurate at one location in the turret adjustment as well. Because of this serious limitation, additional electronics are necessary to track the variables in the rest of the system and adjust the aiming point accordingly. Other systems provide approximate aiming point solutions through the illumination of features at generic, coarsely-spaced intervals instead of having a quasi-infinite range of points to select. Weaker systems are only capable of displaying basic information such as distance to target or current weather conditions.
Thus, a need still exists for a viewing optic that can project information into the first focal plane of an optical system. The apparatuses, systems, and methods disclosed herein address all of these shortcomings in an innovative fashion.