Military Drones

Reversing a position it took last year, Canada’s government says it is sending cutting-edge surveillance cameras for use on Turkish military drones in armed conflict ­– this time in Ukraine.

Among the large number of heroes in the Ukraine’s determination to repel invading Russian armed forces is a mid-size, locally made drone known as the Punisher – something of a weaponized step-up vehicle from consumer craft to the formidable Turkish-built Bayraktar TB2 UAVs also being flown in the country’s defense. As Team Putin might woefully attest, the pint-size Punisher has been living up to its name.

Researchers supported by France’s Defense Ministry are working to develop a more effective surveillance drone that’s also less prone to detection by its imitation of birds or insects.

Drone manufacturer and automated flight specialist Skydio says it has won a contract to supply its X2D UAVs to the US Army’s Short-Range Reconnaissance Program (SRR). Valued at $20.2 million annually, the fixed-price provisionment agreement is expected to be worth $99.8 million over its five-year duration.

We’ve all been there – or at least those of us who fly drones. Maybe you catch a tree, a component fails, or you just plain make a mistake. But the odds are you’ve crashed your drone, especially if you’re flying FPV. But take comfort in the fact that even if you’re facing a costly repair, it’s not the $130 million price tag for a recent military drone crash in North Dakota.

Arms and ammo are often said to be the lifeblood of fighting forces – one reason why militaries around the world have deployed uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) to re-supply troops locked in prolonged combat situations. But for wounded soldiers, actual plasma is even more important than munitions, which is why the UK’s Royal Navy is testing drone delivery of blood to battlefields. 

The US Marine Corps are testing tiny drones capable of performing a range of duties – including striking remote enemy targets with military-grade grenades. The application adds another reason to react fast to any buzzing sounds swiftly approaching from above.

In a world first, Israel is hosting an international drone training exercise. Called the “Blue Guardian,” the military exercise is seeing participation from the United States, France, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

There’s been an attack targeting US troops in Iraq. And it appears to have likely used modified Enterprise-style drones that were packed with explosives. Reports are still emerging, but it appears the device was brought down outside the walls of the airport compound.

The US military has come up with a new, highly effective weapon for zapping enemy drones out of the skies. Pardon the wonky, technical terminology, but what the Mobile Force Protection (MFP) system does is hock a big loogie of plastic pink stuff that looks suspiciously like Silly String at targeted craft, and down goes Frazier.

A UN report states that a Turkish-built quadcopter was used to attack retreating Libyan fighters last year. But, in what appears to be a first that has some concerned, the device was operating in a fully autonomous mode – hunting down its targets without human intervention.

Mexican authorities have ordered two suspected drug cartel operatives to stand trial on charges that they outfitted commercial drones with explosives for use in attacks on security forces.

The April 24 decision to prosecute came less than a week after a pair of police officers were injured by devices in a commercial drone as they cleared a road blocked by drug cartels in the state of Michoacán.

Officials said the attack suggested Mexico’s criminal gangs may hope to use drones as weapons with greater frequency in the future.

The US military wants to deploy a network of surveillance drones to keep an eye on small, unmanned aerial vehicles in urban cities. And it is looking for an organization to further test and develop its signal processing algorithms.

A former Air Force analyst pleaded guilty to leaking documents on the US’s drone strikes against terrorist targets, including al-Qaida. The leaker pleaded guilty just a few days before he was set to go on trial for infringing on the Espionage Act.

When it comes to military drones, the applications are pretty much reduced to two: Intelligence gathering and obliteration. But the US military wants to arm drones with non-lethal weapons… And some of the ideas are intriguing.

Drone manufacturer Edge Group has released its latest drones, the QX family of loitering or kamikaze drones, at IDEX 2021. The company has also used the show as an opportunity to show off its Shadow 50 and Shadow 25 drones and a new variant of the RW-24 drone.

A new video reveals some of the ways in which drones might soon be helping Britain’s naval forces. The Royal Marines recently put a number of drone technologies to the test – and for a number of different purposes.

Aleksey Neizhpapa, the Ukrainian Navy chief, met with the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar to discuss a possible supply of drones to the Eastern European country. The two met for a meeting in Odessa, Ukraine, along the Black Sea.

It has been reported that Russia’s Orion drone has launched powered missiles for the first time, a big step for the country going forward. The drone first flew in 2017 but has never been flown with a powered payload before.

The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) wants to produce a new fleet of cost-effective armed drones as it watched the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Defense officials have stated they believe using lower-cost Turkish drones played a crucial part in Azerbaijan tactics.

A British military drone has, unfortunately, hit the ground during a recent test flight in the Middle Eastern country of Cyprus. The Watchkeeper WK450 drone is believed to have crashed during a training session back in October, which has just be made public by the Observer.