Israeli firm uVision is planning just to do that. Its Hero-30 drone such a weapon that may prove to be a disruptive force in military technology, heralding a new type of warfare in which shooting at a target you can see is as rare as using a bayonet. It’s the killer UAV you’ll never see coming. The Hero 30 weighs around 7 pounds and carry a warhead weighing around 1 pound which is enough to destroy a small area. The tiny drone launches from its pneumatic carrying tube, extends its wings, and zooms at speed up to 115 mph, driven by an electric propeller. Hero 30 can also cruise at slow speeds, loitering over an area to carry recce of its target before hitting it. A stabilized camera and a thermal imager in the nose beams back video to the operator. Hero can fly for 30 minutes, long enough for the operator to locate, identify, and confirm a target several miles away. The operator then sends the Hero on a kamizake run with a one-pound explosive warhead. The Hero 30 is a game changer in military munitions is all sense. In the past, soldiers have been able to take cover behind a wall or a ridge, or by digging a foxhole. Loitering munitions like Hero, which can attack from any direction, strip away this cover. The only place to hide would be inside a bunker. With other weapons you know when someone is firing at you, and where they are. With Hero there is no muzzle flash or report and it can be launched from miles away. Enemy snipers and mortar teams can be engaged from a safe distance and behind cover. The US military has already been working on its own portable killer drone, known as the Lethal Miniature Aerial Munition System (LMAMS), since 2004. In 2012, a trial batch of Switchblade drones built by Aerovironment was sent to Afghanistan, where they were used against “high value targets” (generally a term for insurgent leaders). However as of now the Israeli firm has stolen march of US as Switchblade has just made it to trials.
