Could Be Used For Scouting In Urban Environments And Building Interiors

The U.S. Army is considering a plan that would employ commercially-available drones for use in areas where large military drones are of limited effectiveness.

Wired reports that military leaders have been discussing the use of small scout drones in urban environments and inside structures. Paul Scharre, project director for the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American Security, said that there is a lot of opportunity for the military to "harness commercial technology, modify it for their specific purpose, and field it for urban reconnaissance drones."

Sharre says that many commercial drones have advanced autonomous flight capabilities. DJI and Yuneec, for example, have aircraft with basic sense-and-avoid technology.

But Major Jeffrey Persons, head of the Aviation Combat Element Branch at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, said that commercial drones aren't quite ready for a military role. Autonomy will have to be improved, as will collision avoidance technology. Automatic target recognition software would also need to be developed to identify indoor threats to U.S. troops that might enter a building.

At present, no COTS drone meets the military's requirements. Any commercial drone would need extensive modifications before it could be battle-ready. They would also need to be resistant to attempts by the enemy to hack their communications and controls.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.cnas.org/research/future-of-warfare-initiative