In the trenchesU.S. Air Force looking for miniature weapons for UAVs
Currently, UAVs in combat overseas mostly use standard air weapons; the lightest, most delicate option available to a prowling UAVs is the Hellfire missile, a hefty hundred-pound laser guided rocket which was originally developed for the purpose of taking out heavily-armored main battle tanks; the U.S. Air Force tasks Boeing’s Phantom Works with developing a smaller, lighter missile more suitable for fighting terrorists
U.S. Air Force will spend as much as $7 million to develop “miniature weapons” for use by killer robots. Boeing said it had received an initial $0.5 million deal to look into ideas, which will lead on into another $6.5 million of work if the scheme moves forward. Lewis Page writes that, at the moment, unmanned aircraft in combat overseas mostly use standard air weapons. Generally the lightest, most delicate option available to a prowling UAVs is the Hellfire missile, a hefty hundred-pound laser guided rocket which was originally developed for the purpose of taking out heavily-armored main battle tanks.
Against a more typical modern-war target such as a pickup truck, a small house, or a 4x4, the Hellfire is a blunt instrument rather than a surgical one. Fired at a single person or single room, as it often is, Hellfire is major overkill and causes a lot of collateral damage and dead bystanders — perhaps so much so as to outweigh the value of hitting the target.
Hence the “miniature weapons” deal from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, under which Boeing’s Phantom Works advanced-tech shop will produce something more suitable to counter-insurgency work.
Page suggests that the new mini-missiles seem set to be at least as sophisticated as a Hellfire, perhaps more so. In addition to seeker and guidance tech, they will feature “radar options.” This could be merely a matter of fusing, making the weapon go off at a certain distance from the target, but it might also mean the missile would be able to home in on its victims independently, without a guiding laser dot. “The concept behind this technology is designed to generate very low collateral damage,” says Boeing’s Carl Avila. “[It] allows warfighters to engage a variety of targets, including those in a suburban terrain environment.”
