U.S. Army Special Forces to be equipped with personal drones

[special operation]

United States soldiers assigned to Special Forces or involved in Special Operations could soon be equipped with personal drones small enough to fit in the palm of their hand. U.S. Army Special Forces also know as Green Berets are testing the tiny ‘black hornet’ drones. The “Black Hornet” drone is 18-gram craft which has three cameras and even thermal cameras which makes him available to fly at night. It’s working radius is about a kilometer and it can fly more than 25 minutes. It is controlled only by a small flip down screen and joystick which can be attached to the user’s utility belt.

When needed, soldiers can easy take the craft from a small box that straps to a utility belt. Utility belt works also as data storage point, as opposed to on the drone itself, in case it’s downed and captured. The video feeds directly to a small, user’s chest-mounted screen. The user steers it with a controller one-handed similar to ones used in videogames , or you can easily set waypoints to allow the drone to fly itself using the touch screen controller.

Defense One reported from the the recent National Defense Industrial Association conference, where they saw the “Black Hornet” in flight and they said its video feed was ‘surprisingly clear’ for such small device.

The “Black Hornet” is manufactured under Micro UAV Black Hornet PD-100 PRS name. It has been in operational use for more than three years, including wide use by British Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BBRF) during their support to ISAF in Afghanistan. It is the first airborne and commercially available Personal Reconnaissance System.

‘U.S. Army Special Forces has a handful of the devices. This is what they use when they check out enemy compounds,’ Arne Skjaerpe, CEO and president of Proxdynamics USA, told for Defence One.

Unnamed officials from U.S. Special Operations Command already confirmed that certain elite units under their command had looked at the tiny drone.

DURING MARCH, 2015, ARMY INFANTRYMEN WIDELY TESTED THE PD-100 AT FORT BENNING’S MANEUVER CENTER OF EXCELLENCE DURING THE ARMY EXPEDITIONARY WARRIOR EXPERIMENTS.

‘These informal evaluations have since completed and the systems were returned to the vendor … Various SOF Combat Development Directorates continue to conduct market research into this class of devices,’ the unnamed officials said.

U.S. Special Forces to be equipped with Black Hornet UAV

 

[The Huskar]

And people here are forecasting that China is set to overtake USA militarily.

 

[Gufi]

And people here are forecasting that China is set to overtake USA militarily.

Why drag China into this, this is not something even designed to counter regular armies, but insurgencies and rebels.
And yes it is miniturised but look into the world of RC's and you will see models with lesser range available commercially with single cameras.
Not belittling the drone, which will be leaps and bounds ahead in technology, but your China reference was uncalled for.

 

[That Guy]

And people here are forecasting that China is set to overtake USA militarily.

It very well may eventually, but not for the next 100 years.

 

[The Huskar]

It very well may eventually, but not for the next 100 years.

If we exist for next 100 years.I predict Apocalypse by 2050.