Army to test grenade-launching drone
Marie Donlon | November 19, 2019
Source: Skyborne TechnologiesThe United States Army will soon test an experimental grenade-launching drone during an upcoming showcase of weapons technology.
At the Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiments 2020, held at Fort Benning, Georgia, infantry soldiers will test the Cerberus GL, an unmanned aerial system devised by Skyborne Technologies Pty. Ltd. The 14 lb grenade-launching drone has a roughly two-mile range and can launch three 40 mm explosive grenades at targets more than 400 meters away — a range beyond the maximum range of M320 grenade launchers.
The grenades are designed specifically to be remotely launched at enemy hideouts. Such a development could potentially prove life-saving for soldiers who would typically use handheld grenade launchers on the ground and still within range of enemy fire.
The autonomous grenade-launching drone joins a host of emerging technologies automating military operations. For example, researchers are exploring the use of robots in war zones where the robots detect, defuse and detonate bombs. Likewise, the U.S. Army is also developing robots that will one day assist soldiers in the field, carrying their equipment, thereby increasing their mobility and lethality.
The ongoing Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiments 2020 are being conducted between November 2019 and February 2020.
In addition to the weapons demonstrated at the event, technology for training soldiers in the simulated field as well as systems for autonomously performing high-level mission tasks will also be tested during the event.
...and, thus, began the 'Skynet' weapon systems...next, comes the 'satellites.'
I don't believe that it is autonomous. It may have certain autonomous navigation features such as return to launch site, but the deployment of weapons certainly has human input. Fire and forget weapons have been around for decades, but a human has to decide to initiate the firing at the intended target.
So, when something goes 'wrong', will things turn into "Red Screens" instead of "Blue Screens"?
The concept of a drone armed with a shotgun should be brought to the attention of state legislators. A bird hunter using one of these probably has an unfair advantage over other hunters; it's about as sporting as shooting birds on the water (which is generally illegal). There may be a serious safety hazard to people on the ground, since the pellets will have a greater descending velocity if fired at a horizontal angle or below, and drone operators may not always accurately predict the ground impact point of pellets that do not hit the target. At a minimum, the legislatures should call for tests to see if these concerns are justified.
In reply to #4
Where was that mentioned in this article?
In reply to #5
It wasn't mentioned in the article, but if the idea of adapting a drone to fire a shotgun shell is out there, somebody might get the bright idea of trying it against game birds in flight. That's why legislatures should figure out whether that's going to be a problem, and consider whether to regulate or ban the practice.
In some circumstances, it may be useful for controlling pigeon populations, although bringing in peregrine falcon pairs seems to be an adequate answer already.
In reply to #5
To be fair, the video presents a shotgun-mounted option 48 seconds in.