Mini Drones: Army Deploys Tiny Helicopters

Its no shocker that helicopter drones are being used in combat areas. But the size of the so called Nano drone is pretty amazing.
British troops are using a nano drone just 10cm long and weighing 16 grams on the front line in Afghanistan to provide vital information on the ground. The Black Hornet Nano Unmanned Air Vehicle is the size of a child's toy, measuring just 10cm (4 ins) by 2.5cm (1 inch), and is equipped with a tiny camera.
The 16g helicopters are used to assess enemy threat
Soldiers use the mini drone to peer around corners or over walls to identify any hidden threats and the images are relayed to a small screen on a handheld terminal.
. The face of war is definitely changing with technology. What next? Fleets of UFO's zapping the enemy with laser beams
Ps.....Iguess they would be pretty hard to shoot down as well

Rather similar little helicopters with onboard video cameras are already readily available as toys.
However when you get this small there are several limitations.
1. Battery life. You only get maybe 5 or 10 minutes at most.
2. Cant use them outdoors except in the absolute deadest calm conditions. The one pictures weighs 16 grams, and so I'd be saying that if you can see any leaves moving in the trees AT ALL, then this thing is going to be uncontrollable.

As it says in the story, it might be helpful looking over a wall for a moment, but you arent going to see this model being flown very high or far.

Cute little things. They wouldn't have been safe when I was a kid. I would have taken them out with my bb gun. How much do these little toys cost? I bet they cost a twenty times more than what they would sell for if they were sold on the open market because the government is paying for them.

The nano helicopter has been developed by Prox Dynamics AS of Norway as part of a £20m contract for 160 units with Marlborough Communications Ltd (MCL), Surrey.

reply to post by rickymouse


Ermmm i think my son will have to stick to lego!

£20m contract for 160 units!? That sounds like a particularly bad joke! On the hand, it's just a joke on the taxpayers--nobody important, so never mind....

more on them from 2011

Nano-UAVs snapped up by the UK MoD

November 23, 2011

...

A team of SF operators is postured outside a compound in downtown Kandahar. Intel has led them this far; inside the compound is a Taliban commander responsible for numerous civilian and military casualties. It’s unknown who else is inside with him; heavily armed fighters, a suicide bomber, or innocent women and children? One of the operators rips a device the size of a book from a pouch and flicks it open. He takes out a tiny 15 gram nano-UAV, snaps the rotor blade onto the body and throws it in the air. It shoots up and over the mud-brick wall, the onboard camera beaming a clear picture back to the screen in his hands. Unseen it silently zips past four armed guards in front of the main building and enters through an open window. Inside a group of men are holding a shura. The target has been identified! With a crump the team breaches the compound and rapidly overwhelms the security detail. They make a bee-line for the room containing the target. Moments later the dust has settled and the objective is zip-tied, hooded and ready for processing.

Sounds like something straight out of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, right? Wrong. It’s the not so distant future for UK SF. The Ministry of Defence has just awarded a contract to Prox Dynamics to provide lightweight nano-UAVs for urgent deployment to Afghanistan.

The device selected is the PD-100 Personal Reconnaissance System and comes packaged inside a base station that holds three UAVs and weighs less than kilo. The idea is: an operator can fly one of these UAVs into a building to identify civilians, terrorists, IEDs or other threats.

It’s still early days for this technology and although the MoD contract specifies Night Vision this is yet to be featured on the PD-100. However, GPS navigation and a live-video feed in a matchbox-sized package is impressive, and it’s only a matter of time before these are able to see in the dark. Odds are they’re going to get even smaller, not to mention that basic reconnaissance is just the beginning. I’ll wager we’ll eventually see miniature payloads for tracking or listening devices, and maybe even a Mossad-style chemical injection weapon for a standoff offensive capability. Yeah, large unmanned platforms have been the focus for development over the last decade, but expect to hear a lot more about nano-UAVs.

Jack Silkstone is a writer with a background in Military Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence and Special Operations. To find out more about his books visit www.primalunleashed.com....[/QUOTE]

Originally posted by TheDoctor46
Ps.....Iguess they would be pretty hard to shoot down as well

I think that trying to shoot one down would be construed as giving your position away!

This type of technology is amazing. No hiding place on the battlefield.

Regards