Army Scores a Super-Stealthy Drone That Looks Like a Bird

The big problem with drones is they look like, well, drones. It makes them easy to spot, and easy to target. The Army has a solution to this problem: make them look like birds.

A microdrone that resembles a bird would be harder to spot, the thinking goes, rendering them almost as invisible to the enemy as the soldiers controlling them.

Maveric has a bird-like profile with flexible wings, giving it the appearance of a raptor in flight. The drone, made of composite material, can fly as high as 25,000 feet and zip along at between 20 and 65 mph, making it just the thing for reconnaissance missions. And those super-stealthy guys in Special Operations.

“There was a Special Operations requirement for a plane that had a natural, biological look — it wasn’t supposed to look DoD-ish,” Derek Lyons, vice president of sales and business development at Prioria Robotics, told Flightglobal.

Earlier this fall, the Florida robotics company won a $4.5 million contract from the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force to produce 36 Maverics for an urgent, but undisclosed, need. Training the Joint Special Operations Task Force to use Maveric started earlier this month, according to Prioria, and fully-equipped delivery is expected in December.

Read more at Wired
Come on you knew this was coming. I read about these a few years ago when they were still on the drawing board. Back then they talked about adding explosives to the design and having them swarm targets on suicide missions. Well they still may do that.

I have to say I like this.....!

PDUK

reply to post by Grimpachi


I just hope they don't make drones look like a swan.

Really neat but I think in about ten years drones are everywhere and most hobbyists will have them on spying the neighborhood.. There should be some counter measures made for instance when these things going to be as small as mosquito's then I hope someone will build this home based EMP cleaner so that if we are being spied upon we can push on this EMP button and pufff end of spying drone..

they also using the Oculus rift on quad copters ..

reply to post by Grimpachi


looks like the bird off the first episode of ancient aliens!

Now I want a Maverick for personal use.

I saw this a couple of years ago. Seems like somebody beat them to the punch.