The Kamikaze Drone: The Weaponized RC Plane that Fits in your Backpack.

From the L.A Times:

Seeking to reduce civilian casualties and collateral damage, the Pentagon will soon deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, packing tiny explosive warheads that can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy.

Reducing civilian casualties?  Sounds great until an enemy gets a hold of one of these – or better yet, orders one from on online hobby shop and makes their own.  And we thought I.E.D’s where bad…

Errant drone strikes have been blamed for killing and injuring scores of civilians throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, giving the U.S. government a black eye as it targets elusive terrorist groups. The Predator and Reaper drones deployed in these regions typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided smart bombs that can reduce buildings to smoldering rubble.

The new Switchblade drone, by comparison, weighs less than 6 pounds and can take out a sniper on a rooftop without blasting the building to bits. It also enables soldiers in the field to identify and destroy targets much more quickly by eliminating the need to call in a strike from large drones that may be hundreds of miles away.

“This is a precision strike weapon that causes as minimal collateral damage as possible,” said William I. Nichols, who led the Army‘s testing effort of the Switchblades at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala.

The 2-foot-long Switchblade is so named because its wings fold into the fuselage for transport and spring out after launch. It is designed to fit into a soldier’s rucksack and is fired from a mortar-like tube. Once airborne, it begins sending back live video and GPS coordinates to a hand-held control set clutched by the soldier who launched it.

When soldiers identify and lock on a target, they send a command for the drone to nose-dive into it and detonate on impact. Because of the way it operates, the Switchblade has been dubbed the “kamikaze drone.”

I wish I could believe that the military were only thinking of reducing civilian casualties when developing this technology, and maybe in the short-term that may be the case,  the long-term implications of these little death toys coming state-side and getting into the wrong hands are the things of nightmares.

Arms-control advocates also have concerns. As these small robotic weapons proliferate, they worry about what could happen if the drones end up in the hands of terrorists or other hostile forces.

The Switchblade “is symptomatic of a larger problem thatU.S. military and aerospace companies are generating, which is producing various more exotic designs,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Assn. “This technology is not always going to be in the sole possession of the U.S. and its allies.

 (emphasis mine)

We need to think about the rules of the road for when and how these should be used so we can mitigate against unintended consequences.”

You can read the full article here.

DARPA Robot masters stairs.

A friend of mine sent me this link today.

Apparently, my obsession with robots  has become one of those things where someone finds anything on the internet about robots, they immediately send me the link.

Which I LOVE because it totally cuts down on my research time.  So thank you guys and keep the links coming!

Here’s the link:

A funny thing happens when I watch this: first, I’m absolutely delighted because in my upcoming novel, the robots I feature are bi-pedal robots that can climb stairs and climb them well.  So, when I watch this a part of me does a little fist pump and goes “Yes! I’m on the right track!”  Followed quickly by, “Oh sh*t.  This stuff is real.  And stairs aren’t going to stop them.”

So, how do you feel about DARPA – a well-funded government research agency funding research into bi-pedal robots that can climb stairs fast and without fatigue?  Does it comfort you or are alarm bells going off?

I’d love to hear from you!

R.