Veil of secrecy lifted on Pentagon office planning micro-drone swarms

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/08/inside-the-secretive-pentagon-office-planning-skyborg-fighters-and-drone-swarms/

by wyclif • 10 years ago

144 150 10 years ago

washingtonpost.com

jackgavigan• 10 years ago

“We don’t have to develop new planes,” Roper said. “We don’t have to develop fundamentally new weapons. But we have to work the integration and the concept of operation. And then you have a completely new capability, but you don’t have to wait long at all.”

Whilst this is simply common sense, it's actually pretty radical thinking for the military. The big military contractors will be worried about this idea gaining widespread acceptance.

ipsin• 10 years ago

Yeah, I'm going to assume that the billions still slated for the F-35 and B-21 bomber will still be spent.

TheOtherHobbes• 10 years ago

There are issues.

1. Power source - battery, or something else? 2. Clean-up - do the drones self-destruct, or do they (literally) fall into enemy hands? 3. Range 4. Payload - HE? Are these flying mines/grenades? 5. Security - EMP, jamming, comm-layer hacks.

The defensive applications are probably stronger than the offensive ones.

patcheudor4• 10 years ago

I recently built an acrobatic FPV hexacopter and given its abilities to carry a payload as well as quick flight in close quarters it stuck me as the perfect weapon. Even without cellular or satellite communication to it, the thing has a 1.5 km line of sight range. Why spend billions on the F-35 when you could drop a swarm of these on some insurgents, each with a few grams of explosive. Have a pilot direct the swarm then once close enough to the target(s) have other pilots pick-up quadrants or even individual drones. Get close to the target(s) and trigger the explosives on the drone. It's likely possible to get the component cost easily below $1000 each. Even at $10,000 or $100,000 each, it would be a cheaper alternative to programs like the F-35.

If the US isn't developing them, then others will. The thing that is quite scary is that this technology is available and here today with all the components necessary shipped from China.

knowaveragejoe3• 10 years ago

The F35 isn't being developed solely to combat insurgents, though it'll likely fill that role at some point.

zby4• 10 years ago

Poisonous stings instead of explosives

reitanqild• 10 years ago

I'm constantly reminded of "Kill decision" by Daniel Suarez that I read last year based on a recommendation here.

It plays these ideas (cheap, autonomous) out for some quite interesting reading, only it is the bad guys who are in control.

laen2• 10 years ago

There's really no driving force or threat for the military to innovate in these small counterinsurgency wars. The military has established a status quo and is very comfortable with its current operations. When you start utilizing F-22s to conduct ISIS strikes just to demo the efficacy(inefficiency) of the platform it shows "winning" the war perhaps isn't the top priority.

sean-duffy2• 10 years ago

What makes the weapon you described any better than something like this[0]? Even if we decided to use hexacopters like you described, you still need a vehicle to deliver them, you aren't going to be flying from the US to Syria or wherever on a 3S LiPo.

[0] http://www.raytheon.co.uk/capabilities/products/sdbii/

ambicapter• 10 years ago

Is a couple of grams of even a high-explosive anything more dramatic than a firework?

flexie2• 10 years ago

If American military develops micro drones that have cameras and other sensors and carry enough firepower to kill a man, they have the key to win gorilla wars like the ones they have had trouble with in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

It will be much cheaper to send in 100 tiny drones to kill one enemy soldier than to send in an American soldier. And it will be safe for Americans.

Once you have enough of the drones and they are small enough, you can launch swarms of them inside, outside, over ground, under ground, in daylight and at night. The enemy might be able to shoot down 99 percent of them, but you only need one drone to take out the enemy. You can chase down the enemy soldiers, one by one. You can even avoid civilian casualties by spending enough time to establish who's enemy soldiers and then take them out with precision. Even - to a high degree - if the enemy hides among civilians. Once the target is eliminated (or has surrendered), you can return any surviving drones or have them destroy themselves.

Once war becomes safe and clean for Americans, there will probably be less objections against war. Another Afghanistan will take a few weeks or months, not 15 years. Americans will actually be able to win the peace, not just the wars like today.

When the enemy realises that there is no-where to hide, they will surrender. Americans can basically engage anyone, anywhere, at all time and in no time, with no apparent risk at at little cost.

Of course, the threat of a nuclear retaliation would be the most effective defense against such drone based wars, so I would expect more of the dictatorships to attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.

T-zex• 10 years ago

Americans will actually be able to win the peace, not just the wars like today.

Sincerely hope you are being sarcastic here.

teekert• 10 years ago

If the drones swarm, carrying orders without further communication one can even start and win wars without revealing one's identity.

liotier2• 10 years ago

Do you realize that all this amounts to unavoidable proliferation of autonomous guided ordnance ? Expect narco drone assassinations in Mexico soon and don't think your homeland is immune to the employment of cheap widely available technological artifacts...

ihsw3• 10 years ago

Vehicle-based counter-air systems will simply be added presidential motorcades, and they would be sold as stand-alone systems.

Current counter-air technologies can be scaled down (eg: Iron Dome, S-400, etc) and the preferred method of interception will more than likely be laser-based.

flexie2• 10 years ago

Yes, just like guns are a cheap, widely available technology and used by criminals and dictators already. I am not advocating drone wars, just saying it will happen; the US finds itself engaged in wars already - often several at a time - although it leads to both American losses and local civilian casualties. Which president would rather send in troops than robots?

Unlike the Americans, who have the planes, helicopters, rockets, tanks, carriers etc to launch these drones from a safe distance, it would be hard for terrorists to use it against Americans.

Americans would try to keep the technology to themselves for a while with usual non-proliferation laws and by using encryption on the deployed drones.

ucaetano• 10 years ago

gorilla wars

I see what you did there...

stanmancan• 10 years ago

And what happens when the enemy gets similar technology?

ihsw3• 10 years ago

Current anti-air defense systems can eat Predator and Reaper drones for breakfast, and still ask for seconds.

New anti-air defense systems defending against drone swarms will be developed.

jqm• 10 years ago

I don't think that will be a problem. Gorillas probably aren't going to be able to keep a drone fleet running.

ceejayoz2• 10 years ago

It will be much cheaper to send in 100 tiny drones to kill one enemy soldier than to send in an American soldier. And it will be safe for Americans.

Until such a swarm targets something like a Presidential inauguration, or a busy shopping mall at Christmas, or the Super Bowl.

Americans will actually be able to win the peace, not just the wars like today.

I suspect that statement was said in the mid-to-late 1940s about nuclear weapons.

Retric3• 10 years ago

A dirty secret is we can't actually tell who is a terrorist even inside the US. How do you expect to notice in another country?

EX: [Has gun] is not enough.

EX: [Someone says is a terrorist] is not enough.

If we start tracking people 24/7 with drones we can make a lot of terrorists. But, we don't have enough people to have large numbers of people watched 24/7. So, sure we can kill a lot of people with a new weapon, but we often just classify people as insurgents after we bombed them.

lqdc13• 10 years ago

features:

    has_gun
    looks_like_ak47
    wears_camo_gear

decision:

    fire

Oops, I guess it was a child with a toy gun... I guess we should have trained on more of those.

hellbanner3• 10 years ago

Relevant (seriously) https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/470g9k/tifu_by_buying...

JoeAltmaier• 10 years ago

That's a scenario for a horrific dystopian future movie.

datr• 10 years ago

This is basically the premise for Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez.

sametmax• 10 years ago

Basically turning the US into the Earth bully noone can stop.

And then, theu will be used on US to soil keep the peace inside the country's border as well. For surveillance. Protecion. Then crowd control. Then more.

And after being the world wosrt nightmare you will taste, but too late, the biterness of this idea. And everybody will be in a sad state.

golergka4• 10 years ago

Any government or quasi-government agent is a "bully".

But these bullies are worst when they compete with one another or move from place to place. When these kinds of bullies get (1) stationary and (2) feel safe from competition, that's when you actually get prosperity and safety. And if you destroy the big old lazy bully, it just means that thousand of small ones start fighting over his place.

dragandj• 10 years ago

Of course, US is not the only one who could do that.

noam87• 10 years ago

And what happens when the US decides that Hitler and Mussolini are actually pretty great guys, and that fascism must spread through Europe whether by "persuasion or force" (1); or that a democratically elected leader must be replaced by a brutal military dictatorship (2); or redefines "threat to national security" to mean any country that interferes with the US's "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources" (3); and that "economic nationalism" (i.e: any other nation's right to profit from its own natural resources) must be "eliminated at all costs" (4). What then?

It's astounding how strong the propaganda machine is, and how ignorant of their own whitewashed history even some of the most educated Americans are.

Though it's not unprecedented: just a century ago, the world's most brilliant minds supported (and helped) Germany in the first and second world wars (e.g: the design of chemical weapons)... only five scientists signed an anti-war petition (led by Einstein), while the rest cheered on this new, "more civilized" age of warfare.

Nobody elected the USA world police. If it wishes to aid in peacekeeping, it is free to do so within the confines of international law.

---

1) http://amzn.com/080781766X

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...; and almost every other country in South america: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...

3) http://fas.org/man/docs/qdr/sec3.html

4) http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/1945-02-26a.html

megalodon• 10 years ago

This. The rhetoric of the post above is not very different from the fundamentalist forces America is currently waging wars against.

riskable• 10 years ago

It will be much cheaper to send in 100 tiny drones to kill one enemy soldier than to send in an American soldier. And it will be safe for Americans.

100 tiny drones... So cute. Try 100,000 or more like 10,000,000 if the military "gets serious" about these things.

If these things are effective then why not make large drones with the sole purpose of deploying as many as possible? 10,000 large drones carrying a payload of 1,000 tiny drones. They come back, pick up 1,000 more, and fly again. After a few weeks or months you've got hundreds of thousands covering an area.

It won't be long before tiny drones like this can be powered by photovoltaic panels indefinitely (we have medium sized ones that can do that already). It could be quite a while though before that capability is available for drones that can actually kill people (assuming they don't have enough mass to be used as single-target missiles).

hellbanner3• 10 years ago

Nukes? Why not just hack the drones.. jam their sensors.. take hostages?

"Another Afghanistan".. by "win the peace" you do mean, "everyone alive is on our side", right? (I'm not implying you support pro-war politics, just clarifying for the viewers)

Nukes only work if they are asymmetrical (suitcase) style. If Country X decides to "Nuke the USA".. guess what, USA will Nuke X right back. Pretty useless, unless X is launching because Y forced or tricked them to..

laen2• 10 years ago

Once war becomes safe and clean for Americans, there will probably be less objections against war.

Definitely already there in terms of counterinsurgency wars. The biggest objection to war in America is the cost-benefit, not necessarily the safety of our troops. I say this because historically casualty rates have never been lower for war, ever.

Interesting to think how this attitude will play out in large scale conflicts. What will be the red line for WMD? You'd hope some international law would spell out those red lines, removing any ambiguity before introduction of this technology.

DominikR• 10 years ago

... they have the key to win gorilla wars like the ones they have had trouble with in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

To me this sounds very naive. After all they killed 3-4 million Vietnamese during that war.

The only way to win a war on such a scale is to commit genocide, since an enemy willing to keep fighting after losing many millions will not stop fighting unless you kill them all.

But yes, technically you are right, you would "win the peace" if you exterminate the enemy population.

pjc504• 10 years ago

Americans will actually be able to win the peace

Americans will not be able to win guerilla warfare because they do not understand it. Partly due to trying to operate an empire while refusing to realise they are doing so.

America has by some metrics not even won its own civil war - or at least not brought its ethnic conflict to a conclusion. There is still the occasional church burning http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/20/charleston-shoo... or mass shooting.

It is not a matter of how many people you can kill. The Belgians killed 18 million people in the Congo and eventually gave up on it as a colony.

The end game of US occupations is alleged to be "democracy". This involves not just elections and parties but a whole stack of legal and political rights. One of those rights is the right to justice: i.e. not arbitrary execution from the sky. You can kill the martyr, but what do you do with the crowd of demonstrators carrying pictures of him? Open fire on them too?

The risk to the US from drone murder warfare is not that it is too hard but that it is too easy. It has the potential to be a morally corrosive weapon like the One Ring: used more and more often in more situations with higher and higher body counts. Once the first million are dead (arguably this number was passed somewhere in the Iraq war) it's much easier to kill the next ten million.

maxxxxx• 10 years ago

The current political climate won't probably allow this but I would like to see an effort to outlaw this kind of weapons internationally like biological and chemical weapons got banned. I would add landmines to that list too.

War should be hard and have a cost. If a country can wage war on the cheap we'll have a scary world.

infinite8s• 10 years ago

If you couple a swarm of these micro-drones and an AlphaGo like planner then you'll basically have a mini SkyNet.

ohitsdom• 10 years ago

Are the drones disposable? I would think so since I bet their range is limited. How do they handle concerns of this tech falling into the enemy's hands? I realize it's mostly simple (3-D printed and lightweight) but there's still value there (in camera/weaponry and software).

iphoneseventeen• 10 years ago

Self destruct after X hours?

jjwiseman4• 10 years ago

The Syrian Airlift Project, which used drones to send aid to refugees and besieged civilians in Syria, added a "self-destruct mechanism that destroys the autopilot if a crash is imminent in Syria, reducing the risk of later weaponization by bad actors" and the potential leak of sensitive information.

usrusr• 10 years ago

A sufficiently locked bootloader and a maybe even a disposable battery will reduce the effective finder's value to a few grams of rare earth magnets. At this size, I would not expect too many fancy area-51-grade sensors, just OTS webcam class stuff that gets the job done.

With the massed deployment model of dropping a whole container of these things, the nominal cost woult probably be measured in money per tonne, not money per airframe...

zby4• 10 years ago

The biggest problem with this is that this is perfect for political assasinations. It can be precise enough and it can be probably leave little traces or be made hard to identify who was controlling the weapon - just like now we have problem with identifying the sources of internet attacks.

I remember reading, many years ago, a very short SF story about a robot built specificially to kill targeted people and leave false traces. I think even now it would not be too difficult to built a small bug-like (or wasp-like) robot with a poisonous sting that could autonomously navigate a few hundred meters to reach a bed of a politician (or activist) - how are you going to protect your leaders against an attack like this?

adam12• 10 years ago

That is terrifying.

tjl• 10 years ago

Dune hunter/killer drones? Although, those weren't actually autonomous.

jjwiseman4• 10 years ago

The Unreconstructed M, by Philip K. Dick: https://books.google.com/books?id=R7rALwfN6pYC&pg=PA117&lpg=...

zby4• 10 years ago

Yeah - that was it. Apparently it is in public domain now: http://www.sffaudio.com/the-unreconstructed-m-by-philip-k-di... so you can read it here: http://www.sffaudio.com/podcasts/TheUnreconstructedMByPhilip...

13thLetter4• 10 years ago

You'd have the same problem identifying the source of a sniper's bullet, in the context of a world where the government is willing to take people out like this.

zyxley• 10 years ago

And a sniper is far less likely to end up Youtube than a random swarm of little drones.

zby4• 10 years ago

Hmm - but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Fide...

Looks like it was not that easy - even for a superpower like the USA. Now imagine that they had miniature bots that could follow the target (and then kill him).

sj4nz3• 10 years ago

This is some especially scary stuff. These drones won't be carrying bullets. They'll be carrying tiny payloads of VX nerve agent to be "effective detterent." Since the LD50 is 10 mg, "legally" _any_ country could stockpile 100g of VX (the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and maintain a swarm of death-drones 10,000-strong. Yesterday's "smart" bombs with thousands of pounds of high explosives are now quaint, like cannons made out of bronze.

Countries willing to report can maintain a tonne of VX and a drone swarm 100-million devices strong. If you can swarm 100,000 drones at a force and they can only stop 99%, it still kills a thousand people--but in reality, once a swarm attack begins, you're going to see the enemy flail uselessly against these drones in defense.

War has now fundamentally changed and standing armies don't even realize it yet. Activism is now even more dangerous. If you thought political opposition was dangerous now, imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.

If you attended Obama's last inauguration on the steps of the Capitol on the National Mall, hold fast to that memory. The next, and all future, presidential inaugurations may just be indoor affairs. Or perhaps... under a giant lexan rotunda.

thaumasiotes• 10 years ago

Since the LD50 is 10 mg, "legally" _any_ country could stockpile 100g of VX (the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and maintain a swarm of death-drones 10,000-strong.

If I wanted to assassinate someone with poison, I'd use a higher dose than the LD50.

sj4nz3• 10 years ago

There you go, you're denying the enemy a sporting chance. :/

CyberDildonics• 10 years ago

But if you were paying attention he was talking about being able to stockpile chemicals without having to tell anyone.

bkeroack• 10 years ago

Also the concentration goes down with the cube of the distance from where it's released into the air, so if a drone is carrying 10mg it's very unlikely to be able to harm even a single person. Unless it fires a dart or something like that.

roymurdock• 10 years ago

Is there any reason an EMP/large radio scrambling gun [1] would not be effective against a large swarm of drones?

[1] http://www.gizmag.com/anti-uav-defense-system-radio-beam-dro...

sj4nz3• 10 years ago

Aim an EMP beam at the enemy's anti-drone EMP's... then unleash hell.

542458• 10 years ago

I believe that an EMP is impractical due to the crazy power draw. Non-nuclear EMPs are typically explosively pumped and have a very short range. Jammers (which is what the radio gun is) could work, but are civilian-illegal.

samstave2• 10 years ago

What about shotguns with birdshot?

dmschulman• 10 years ago

Or a shoulder mounted cannon that fires a net http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/03/the-skywall-100-is-a-net-...

gene-h• 10 years ago

Well said drones might not need real time radio communication or they could communicate optically. GPS denied navigation is something missiles have had for a while so jamming GPS is out. The small size also means that less current will be induced.

That being said, it would probably be better to use lasers to burn them out of the sky. It probably doesn't take much energy to damage their wings.

Ntrails• 10 years ago

the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)

I'm probably ok with saying I'm not producing whether I am or not...

CapitalistCartr5• 10 years ago

You and most governments on Earth. During the Cold War, reporting agreements were only as good as their verifiability. Drones, fighting bots, and their weapons aren't controllable once the World knows how to make them. 3D printing prototypes, comparing software tries via the Internet as any other OSS project and we have great "hobbyist micro-RC planes".

tome• 10 years ago

imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.

They didn't need a drone to kill a political opponent.

nether• 10 years ago

Plus you'd see this 1-foot wide conspicuous object hovering in front of them, since you can't project a toxic gas in a targeted way from afar.

You don't need swarms to release vaporized agents. Just one low flying crop duster. That's the whole point of gas, it spreads everywhere so that you don't need to target.

HN has gone off the deep end with defense articles. Can't wait for the next headline to just say IT'S HAPPENING.

yesco• 10 years ago

Certainly makes it easier.

daveguy• 10 years ago

These drones won't be carrying bullets. They'll be carrying tiny payloads of VX nerve agent to be "effective detterent."

Seriously? I don't know how this comment is at the top of my list. I have never seen a citation more needed. A single bullet fired at close range from one of these drones would be much more effective than dropping some nerve agent. If you can aim effectively and have 20 of these - only one of which needs to get within 10 feet then the target is much more surely dead than an LD50 nerve bomb. If you are going to do that and not give a crap about collateral then just fire a missile from the plane or a big drone. Mini drones are much more likely to be used for recon than attack.

jerf2• 10 years ago

What's really more important than size of the drones is quantity. How do you stop a plane? You shoot it down. How do you stop 100 planes? You shoot them down, but it's a lot harder. How do you stop 100,000 drones, who are deliberately doing things to make them hard to shoot down all at once? Just about the only two answers are A: with another 100,000 drones of your own shooting back or B: a very, very big EMP, or a lot of EMPs of significant power. Both of these have problems of their own.

There are other problems; for instance, you need a delivery platform because small drones can't carry enough energy to transport themselves long distances. Always the real world interferes with the dream (nightmare or otherwise). But what you potentially end up with is another phase transition in warfare, such as occurred in the industrial era, where there were militaries that were industrial, and there were the militaries that would have saved a lot of time and lives if they just surrendered immediately, because they never stood a chance.

CapitalistCartr5• 10 years ago

A micro-drone the size of a bullet or smaller can't fire one. I agree recon makes vastly more sense, but we pay scientists to be Dr. Strangelove, so if there's a way to arm them, I've got faith in the Pentagon/DARPA to come through with something.

13thLetter4• 10 years ago

If you thought political opposition was dangerous now, imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.

If the evil, cackling villains running the US government (did you vote for the ruling party last election, by the way? Are you planning on voting to re-elect the same party this November?) are willing to have a drone float down out of the sky and spray a political opposition figure with nerve gas in front of a thousand people, why wouldn't they be willing to just have some thugs kick in their door in the middle of the night?

I don't know what's worse about this attitude, the paranoia or the inconsistency. The only reason the government hasn't given in completely to its evil impulses is because they're waiting to develop and deploy some fancy bleeding-edge cyberpunk technology that's going to be less effective, less cheap, and less deniable than a couple of dudes with lead pipes... that viewpoint baffles me.

Crito2• 10 years ago

"Since the LD50 is 10 mg, "legally" _any_ country could stockpile 100g of VX (the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and maintain a swarm of death-drones 10,000-strong."

What are you going to do, fly the drone down the guy's throat?

CapitalistCartr5• 10 years ago

Actually, that's worth considering. Micro-drones are inherently disposable anyway. If you're using a 3-4 mm drone, you don't care that the opposition knows it was a drone; they're tiny, not invisible, and not a secret. If a dozen drones all tried for the mouth (or the drone is a skin-penetrating dart), one is sure to get through. Until we all have counter-drone tech.

shostack• 10 years ago

"Or perhaps... under a giant lexan rotunda."

Or just make sure to do it on a windy day?

abrookewood3• 10 years ago

Or string up a lot of nets ... assuming small drones of course.

whatnotests• 10 years ago

Take. Your. Meds.

shele• 10 years ago

And this is how the world ends according to Stanisław Lem, 1964, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible .

btbuildem• 10 years ago

He's refined (?) that concept in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel)

gambiting• 10 years ago

My favourite book of all time actually, deeply recommend :-)

coldcode• 10 years ago

History has always shown that for every new offensive weapon someone will one-up it with a defensive one or find some way to render it useless; then the cycle continues. Also for every technology you think you control, someone will find a way to take it from you.

abledon• 10 years ago

what was the defensive weapon against the Atomic Bomb?

Political Sanctions?

jjn2009• 10 years ago

More atomic bombs

rtkwe• 10 years ago

For all the bad that it did mutually assured destruction seemed to do the job.

brandmeyer• 10 years ago

I don't think that's been true for several decades. Missiles and torpedoes have completely trumped armor in naval warfare. Even today, anti-submarine warfare systems are nearly useless against the offensive capabilities of submarines.

Similarly for tank armor - modern tanks' armor are only effective against weapons that aren't otherwise designed for the purpose of penetrating them. Anti-tank weapons easily destroy tanks today.

Gustomaximus• 10 years ago

If you take WWI for example which is considered the largest technology warfare shift in mankind, the technology cycle of counter measure held true but came at terrible cost. Our 're-balancing' could come at the cost of billions of lives. Think about that.

Also if you like at history, you'd know typically the few control the many and use a gained advantage to be fairly brutal to anyone else.

I'm not so confident this will work well out if people simply let the natural evolution of events happen without putting in altruistic controls and agreements within and between nations.

dogma11382• 10 years ago

How exactly is this scarier than a 20m wing span MQ-9 Reaper with 4 Hellfire Missiles or an over the counter DJi-Phantom packed with C4 for that matter?

These drones might be useful for some EW/Cyber warfare and maybe as advanced counter measures but assassinations? pffttt the US and many other countries have[0] loitering munitions that could be much more effective at those tasks than a drone that wont survive a collision with a house fly from the look of it.

The whole swarm thing is also overblown, the USAF is looking into swarm configuration for manned and unmanned aircraft mostly to counter contested airspaces due to the proliferation of advanced AA platforms, the whole idea is to send a swarm of low cost UAV's that could either saturate the airspace and either make the AA tracking systems ineffective or actually use EW or act like anti-radiation platforms them selves and just ram the radar arrays of the enemy missile systems.

The delivery method reported for this particular one is also quite ineffective dumping 100's of those out of the back of a transport aircraft seems to me a much more effective method which also has been tested by the US many time before to deliver loitering munitions mostly Anti-Radiation platforms.

[0]http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/08/uk-complex-weapons-par... [0]http://defense-update.com/features/du-1-07/armedUAVs_8.htm

task_queue2• 10 years ago

Because they're small, cheap, easily made, easily replaceable and easily deployed.

dogma11382• 10 years ago

They aren't nearly as effective as the countless other types of autonomous munitions that the US has deployed over the years they aren't going to be used as "weapons" the US has suicide drones which are much better suited for that task.

alvern• 10 years ago

Moving past the nerve gas or explosive payloads, it would be rather easy to equip tasers or other non-violent riot measures on a swarm of micro drones.

Like a swarm of wasps that can be targeted and controlled.

jjwiseman4• 10 years ago

"Watch this drone taser a guy until he collapses": http://time.com/19929/watch-this-drone-taser-a-guy-until-he-...

ondrae• 10 years ago

We'll just need our own swarm of drones to protect us from these ones. In Neal Stephenson's [Diamond Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age) each neighborhood has an invisible border of these murder drones that won't let you pass.

rsync• 10 years ago

"Depending upon the species, mosquitoes can fly at about 1 to 1.5 miles per hour. Mosquito species preferring to breed around the house, like the Asian Tiger Mosquito, have limited flight ranges of about 300 feet. Most species have flight ranges of 1-3 miles."

So ... you're probably not going to beat ~billions of years of evolution, in terms of power to weight ratio and efficiency, right ?

So let's use the mosquito as a baseline and stipulate that what you gain by stripping away the reproductive and digestive systems, you lose back by adding an offensive payload, so that's a wash.

And you end up with something that has a range of ~2 miles and can fly about 1 mph. And also we're already evolved to hear and see objects of this size (and smaller).

If you make them larger, to carry more payload, not only do you start down this vicious cycle of greater size to support more payload (see: adding more battery weight to an electric car to increase the range, but diminishing returns because you added more weight...) but you also end up with a larger "bug" that's even easier to notice.

Or you could make them smaller, but now your range/speed drops even further.

This is not to mention the issue of predators - albeit confused ones that probably just spit the drone out.

linkregister• 10 years ago

I'm not clear about where you got the idea that the drones were the size of mosquitoes. The article mentioned that each one was propelled by a single 1-inch (2 1/2 cm) propeller and weigh about one pound (1/2 kg). The picture in the article showed a small fixed-wing aircraft. It looks like aircraft of that nature would have far less maneuverability and far greater range than a natural organism that size.

But I am glad you contributed this comment; I agree that objects that small are more vulnerable to gusts of wind and predators.

abrookewood3• 10 years ago

Someone further up was talking about making insect-sized drones ... presumably this was a response to that.

arippberger• 10 years ago

My god. They are well on their way to creating a real Protoss Carrier.

Veil of secrecy lifted on Pentagon office planning micro-drone swarms

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