Surveillance Drones To Zap Protesters Into Submission

Big brother is getting ready to take to the air with unmanned police spy drones to keep an eye on our every move but, that's not all, keeping an eye on us just isn't enough, soon those spy drones may be armed and dangerous.

Future police: Meet the UK's armed robot drones

Police forces all over the UK will soon be able to draw on unmanned aircraft from a national fleet, according to Home Office plans. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers, and will be in place in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Surveillance is only the start, however. Military drones quickly moved from reconnaissance to strike, and if the British police follow suit, their drones could be armed -- but with non-lethal weapons rather than Hellfire missiles.


Unmanned aircraft can also be fitted with speakers, such as the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which could not only warn fly tippers that they were breaking the law but also be loud enough to drive them away.

The LRAD is a highly directional speaker made of a flat array of piezoelectric transducers, producing intense beam of sound in a 30-degree cone. It can be used as a loudhailer, or deafen the target with a jarring, discordant noise. Some ships now carry LRAD as an anti-pirate measure: It was used to drive off an attack on the Seabourn Spirit off Somalia in 2005.


But rather than just driving them away, a police drone should be able to stop fleeing criminals in their tracks. Helicopters already mount powerful searchlights, and strobe lighting capabilities can turn such systems into effective nonlethal weapons. High-intensity strobes can cause dizziness, disorientation and loss of balance making it virtually impossible to run away.

This effect was first harnessed in the "Photic Driver" made by British company Allen International in 1973. However, it has taken improvement in lighting technology (such as fast-switching Xenon lights) and an understanding of the physiology involved to make such weapons practical.

A "light based personnel immobilisation device" developed by Peak Beam Systems Inc has been successfully tested by the US military, and work to mount it on an unmanned helicopter in the States is under way.

This sort of light would be too dangerous for a manned aircraft because of the crew being affected. But an unmanned "strober" could be a literal crime stopper, and something we could see deployed within the next couple of years.

Read more: Wired

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you, military style armed surveillance.




[edit on 12-2-2010 by FortAnthem]

That is sad...yet curiously awesome.

dammit, build a cylon already...if we are going down the road of dystopian dictatorship, at least make it cool.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
That is sad...yet curiously awesome.

dammit, build a cylon already...if we are going down the road of dystopian dictatorship, at least make it cool.

Yeah, Cylons would be cool. This on the other hand just looks kinda goofy.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b6e0b6528d6f.jpg[/atsimg]

It looks like you could take that thing down with a big flyswatter.

Here's a couple of other pictures I found of the creepster drone.



And I can't help but think this guy is channeling a white Geordi La Forge.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
It looks like you could take that thing down with a big flyswatter.

Or by something like a chain thrown over them, they look terribly fragile.

I dont know how you folks from the UK can put up with big brother type equipment like this, and all the CCTV cameras.

I know if these things started flying all over the US id be one of the first trying/working on a way to shoot them all down.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Predator UAV probably
non lethal as far as i know. but it could be equipped with a missile of some sort, or even an under-nose 50 cal
this thing could very well be a lethal weapon.

Problem: police drone.

Answer: shotgun.

....I think they'll be ready for that. But, as always, if you escalate force levels, the police will too. And they will win.

I always wonder why someone who is intelligent enough to develop something like this WOULD develop it. Aren't they smart enough to see the tremendous potential for abuse or are they just greedy and unethical?