Backpack-Size Small Military Drone for Use at Battlefield

Backpack-Size Small Military Drone for Use at Battlefield

courtesy of AeroVironment
courtesy of AeroVironment

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Australia is to start making its own military drones, officials have revealed. It will be the first time Australia builds military drones.

Colonel Andrew Jones, the Australian army’s aviation program director, told a major military and defence industry gathering in Adelaide that Defence wanted Australian firms to help build a small, tough drone that soldiers can fit in backpacks and send out to spy on enemies on the battlefield. He indicated it would be just a first step in a project that’s “more than just intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance”. Australia has signalled plans to start using such weaponised unmanned vehicles, according to the Herald.com.au.

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne told the conference that “remotely operated platforms” – another term for drones – was going to be a priority of the government’s $640 million Defence Innovation Hub.

Colonel Jones said the government was currently operating about 20 American-made Wasp AE small drones, which are backpack-sized, weigh 1.3 kilograms and have a 102 cm wingspan, can fly for up to 50 minutes at a range of five kilometres while streaming live colour and infrared video back to soldiers on the battlefield.

Currently drones are remotely piloted from the ground. Group Captain Guy Adams, the RAAF’s director of unmanned systems, said there was a “fair amount of work to be done” before drones could be made more autonomous but he said that the Defence Science and Technology Group was working on a “trusted autonomy system”.

courtesy of AeroVironment
courtesy of AeroVironment