Darpa Readies UCAR Downselect

The goal of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa)-led initiative is essentially to devise a system that could independently find targets, even armed individuals, and attack them, with human controllers providing only the most basic instructions. At the same time, the price for each stealthy unmanned helicopter is supposed to be no more than $8 million, with support costs a fraction of a comparable manned system like the AH-64 Apache.

All the UCARs will feature an extensive sensor suite, including laser radar, synthetic aperture radar and electro-optical and infrared payloads. The goal is to use data fusion to detect targets. For instance, to determine if a person is armed, a UCAR could use its laser radar and the metallic glint a synthetic aperture radar can detect. AWST, Sept 6, 2004
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The Army seems to be trying to come up with a way to deploy thier helicopters in lights of recent failures. By using the UCARS over dangerous airspace they can keep pilots safe. Im a little leary of the autonomus targeting of people though. AParently it uses Synthetic Aperature Radar to detect the metalic signature of a firearm an then target them. What if it is a kid with aluminium baseball bat?



The Northrop proposal undergoing radar testing






[edit on 8-9-2004 by FredT]

This seems to be a step to making UCAVs killing machines without any human control. Machines are so dumb right now I dont think that is wise. May be in 20 years they will able to do such a complex task as to be able to tell a friendly from a hostile. But for now I think we should stick to human controlled UCAVs.

He should test some of these system because in the future computers will be able to understand such complex task.

I think your right FredT I think this system would see a metal bat the same as a gun.

Well hopefully a kid with a baseball bat wouldnt be running through the desert in the middle of a warzone...plus theres always failsafes