One of the 50 entries in the Israeli Defence-AI Deployment Index is classified as targeting and fire control, and it is graded L3 · Operational. There is no second entry at any grade. The single AI fire control system in this category is SMARTSHOOTER's SMASH, and the fact that it stands alone is a finding about the index's inclusion test rather than about Israeli weapons engineering.
This is one of three categories the index reports as almost bare. In this one, the sole occupant also holds the highest grade the index awards.
What the index counts in this category
The inclusion test is that a company's core product must be AI or autonomy applied to defence. Targeting and fire control is an area where that test bites hard.
Fire control in Israel is overwhelmingly embedded: it lives inside tank sights, missile seekers, remote weapon stations and air-defence systems built by the primes, where the algorithm is one layer of a large hardware programme. Those firms sit outside the index for the reasons argued in why the Israeli primes are excluded. Once they are removed, what is left is the small set of companies selling the computer-vision and tracking layer as the product itself. One met the sourcing threshold at version 0.2. The grading rules and the full index are published alongside.
L3 · Operational — SMARTSHOOTER
SMARTSHOOTER, also styled Smart Shooter (founded 2011, Kibbutz Yagur), makes SMASH, a rifle-mounted sight that applies computer vision and target tracking to small-arms engagement, including against small drones.
Breaking Defense reported in June 2025 that SMARTSHOOTER said the US Army was expanding its use of the company's high-tech fire control system. The publisher is an identifiable defence outlet; the statement about expanding use inside the report is attributed to the company, and the index records it on that basis. It is the source on which the L3 grade rests.
The contract record around it is independently reported. In May 2026 The Defense Post and Army Technology reported a follow-on US Army award of approximately $10.7 million for SMASH 2000LE systems and related support, with delivery scheduled for the third quarter of 2026. The Jerusalem Post covered the same award. UAS Weekly reported the award as a follow-on for counter-drone fire control systems. A fuller account of the sourcing sits in the SMARTSHOOTER company profile.
Why nothing else is in the category
Three filters, applied in sequence, empty the category.
The primes are excluded, which removes almost all Israeli fire control by volume. The index does not count air-defence interceptors, guided munitions or armoured-vehicle sights, because in each case the AI is a subsystem rather than the product being sold.
Loitering munitions and armed drones are counted elsewhere. UVision, SpearUAV and XTEND all involve terminal guidance of some kind and all sit in autonomous air systems, because that is what they are sold as. A reader searching for Israeli precision-engagement companies should read this category alongside that one rather than instead of it.
What remains is the narrow niche of retrofit fire control: software and optics added to a weapon that already exists. That is a small commercial space anywhere, and in Israel it currently contains one exportable product with a documented foreign customer.
What the distribution shows
A category of one, graded L3, is an unusual shape and it makes a point the index makes repeatedly. Density and evidence are unrelated. Counter-UAS holds eleven entries and spans every grade; targeting and fire control holds one and sits at the top. Nothing about being crowded makes a category better documented, and nothing about being empty makes it worse.
It also shows what an L3 actually requires. SMARTSHOOTER reached it because a foreign customer — the US Army — is named in reporting, and because US procurement produces a paper trail that Israeli procurement generally does not. Most Israeli defence-AI companies sell into a domestic customer that publishes nothing, which is the main mechanism behind the deployment evidence gap.
The index also cites the UK's Project THESEUS as evidence that autonomy applied to hard military problems remains, in the main, a primes' business. The Ministry of Defence selected Rafael's AI-based battlefield resupply solution and awarded a demonstration contract to Marlborough Communications with Israel Aerospace Industries. Where a Western ministry has bought Israeli autonomy at programme scale, it has bought from the primes, not from startups. The same reading applies to active protection and is set out across all three in three categories came back almost bare.
What would change it
A second entry is the obvious change, and it would most likely come from one of two directions: a counter-drone company moving from detection into terminal engagement software, or a computer-vision firm selling a targeting layer to a weapon-station integrator. Either would enter at the grade its published evidence supported, which for a young company would usually be L0 or L1.
A reclassification would also change the count. If the index widened its category definitions to place terminal guidance in loitering munitions here rather than in autonomous air systems, this category would gain several entries overnight without a single new fact entering the record. The index prefers a category of one to a category inflated by definition, and says so.
For SMARTSHOOTER itself there is no higher grade to reach. The entry can only be strengthened by further independent reporting, or weakened if a published source contradicts the existing account.
Limits of this reading
One entry is not a market. It is one company that met a narrow inclusion test and had reporting attached to it.
The index holds no accuracy data, no test results and no comparative information about SMASH or anything else, and it does not assess whether the system performs as described. It also does not, as a standing rule, connect any product to a named strike, operation or casualty event. What is recorded here is that an identifiable outlet published an account of US Army use, that a follow-on award was independently reported, and that nothing else in Israeli targeting and fire control currently qualifies for inclusion at all.
Frequently asked questions
Which Israeli company makes an AI fire control system for infantry weapons?
SMARTSHOOTER, based at Kibbutz Yagur, makes the SMASH rifle-mounted sight, which applies computer vision and target tracking to small-arms engagement including against drones. It is the only company in this category of the index, graded L3 · Operational.
Why does this category contain only one company?
Israeli fire control is mostly embedded inside prime contractors' hardware programmes, and those firms fall outside the index's inclusion test. Loitering munitions with terminal guidance are counted in the autonomous air systems category instead, which leaves one retrofit fire-control company.
What evidence supports the L3 grade?
Breaking Defense reported in June 2025 that SMARTSHOOTER said the US Army was expanding its use of the system. Separately, a follow-on US Army award of about $10.7 million for SMASH 2000LE was reported by several defence outlets in May 2026.
Sources
- idf.ai, The Israeli Defense-AI Deployment Index v1.0, 24 August 2026
- Breaking Defense, Israel's SMARTSHOOTER says US Army expanding use of high-tech fire control system, June 2025
- The Defense Post, US Army orders more fire control devices from SMARTSHOOTER, 12 May 2026
- Army Technology, Smart Shooter lands $10.7m US Army contract for SMASH 2000LE systems
- The Jerusalem Post, Israeli defense-tech company secures $10.7 million contract with US to supply AI-powered system
- UAS Weekly, Smart Shooter receives follow-on U.S. Army award for SMASH 2000L counter-drone fire control systems, 11 May 2026
- Raksha Anirveda, UK Ministry of Defence selects RAFAEL's solution for battlefield logistic resupply for Project THESEUS
- Raksha Anirveda, UK MOD Project Theseus: Marlborough Communications Limited and Israel Aerospace Industries awarded contract
Independent publication of idf.ai. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli Ministry of Defense, or any government body. Compiled entirely from publicly published sources. No classified, restricted or non-public information. Listed companies may dispute any entry: send the published source that contradicts it and the entry will be amended or removed.