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A New Human-Seeking Drone, Much Cheaper Than a Predator

Posted by timothy on from the you'd-still-need-a-high-allowance dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this envy-inspiring bit from Gizmodo on the Aeryon Scout Quadrotor: "The drone, packing a camera that can ID a human from almost two miles away (using a standard digital cam or thermal vision), can be hand-assembled. Once in the sky, it gyro-orients itself to track whatever it is you're tracking, can hit speeds of over 30 MPH, and is all controllable with a touch remote. Tap a target, and watch the drone zoom over. It's not going to rain down any Hellfire missiles, but hey, it only weighs a kilogram."

6 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Radar by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Something that small would be hard to spot with radar, and it does not need to rain down hell fire missiles, a single well places .22 round will neutralize many targets.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:Radar by olsmeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A few ounces of high explosive, a detonator circuit, a fragmentable body, and a kamikaze run would probably take care of things nicely.

    2. Re:Radar by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why shoot anything. Logically you would tweak the battery so that using high discharge capacitors you could overload it and detonate it as the explosive and fragment source (weight saving whilst increasing destructive payload). So you have a short range, very low cost, aerial mine usable and manufacturable by all and sundry, a mobile IED or with government authorised combatants use it, an assassination device.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Get your own: Parrot AR Drone by aqui · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can get your own:

    Here:
    http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/parrot-parrot-ar-drone-ipod-iphone-ipad-controlled-quadricopter-orange-blue-pf720002ag/10156982.aspx?path=81e4f1876418f65ce283409ba0d00969en02

    for $330 Canadian this baby flies for 20 min. indoors and out self stabilizes and hovers, and can be controlled via your iphone or your computer via wifi
    and has two onboard cameras (one forward facing one downward facing.

    It's made by AR Drone
    http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

    It's even hackable:
    http://www.ardrone-flyers.com/news/73-urbi-following-a-ball-in-25-lines-of-code.html

    I've seen it fly and it's sweet. With a VGA camera its pretty cool.

    --
    ----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
  3. oh, the abuse by Thad+Zurich · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can you say "Paparazzi"? I knew you could.

  4. Now imagine that is flies in and lands. by Marrow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Say someone lands it on a rubbish heap or something, Its flat, quiet, drab. Camera is running. They watch a house. The target appears in a doorway for a second. Bing. The signal goes out. The target is painted. A global-hawk-predator-whatever that has been sitting on station for the past month refueling in-flight is tasked. Weapons free. The weapon follows in the laser. Boom.
    They could make it smaller with a top mounted camera so it could sit in on a haystack or on top of a barn. With just a fiber-optic camera sticking up. Heck, it could even have a solar panel to keep the camera transmitting for long periods.