This story originally appeared at Business Insider:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is responsible for some of the world’s most significant scientific and technological breakthroughs.
DARPA has had a hand in major inventions like GPS, the internet, and stealth aircraft. And it’s always developing new technologies — military or intelligence-related systems that could end up having a huge impact outside the battlefield as well.
We’ve looked at some of DARPA’s active projects, and found some of the more astounding systems that are currently in the works.
Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) are the military’s first self-guided bullets.
EXACTO bullets are able to change their path during flight to correct for the movement of a target or any other factors that might have driven the bullet off course.
The bullets feature optical tips that can detect lasers on a target. Tiny fins on the bullets then guide the bullet towards that laser.
The Pentagon successfully conducted a live-fire test utilizing these rounds.