The American Defense Contractor Aerovironment has presented A new unidirectional attack dronethe subtle way of referring to a suicide drone, called Red Dragon that the company has designed to Operate with a very limited user interaction ‘. This kamikaze drone is The first of a ‘new generation of autonomous systems’ conceived for ‘scalability, speed and operational relevance’. It is prepared to be resilient to the media of electronic war and can operate in environments without access to GPS or with degraded communications.
Although it is part of a new generation of attack drones, Red Dragon takes advantage of existing technologies. The autonomous vehicle integrates software architecture Avacore of Aerovironment, as well as the system Spotr-Edein charge of the detection of objectives and that automatically categorizes them depending on an integrated data library. In addition, it uses a system of Ddil radio To communicate with your operator.
A DDIL radio system (Denied, Degraed, Intermittent, or Limited Communications) is designed to function in environments where communications are denied, degraded, intermittent or limited and limited Allows a drone to maintain operational capabilities with blocked traditional communications.
The drone has been designed to Fast display and flexible tactical operations. It can be released From almost anywhere by small infantry units And it has the capacity to attack objectives in the air, in the sea or on land. The company ensures that the system is designed for mass production, uses commercially available components and has already been used in combat by at least one un specified customer.
Red Dragon, which weighs 20 kg And it has a wingspan 3.6 meters and a length of 2fly at a cruise speed up to 101 km/h and can reach, at the time of the attack, A terminal speed close to 160 km/h.
In its greatest scope, you can fly until 400 kilometerswhich means between 5 and 6 hours of autonomy, and transport a payload of approximately 10 kg. The standard payload is a EFP type eye (Explosion -formed loading penetrator), with a weight of approximately 2.3 kg, conferring a certain degree of Antibrusion capacity.
On its website, Aerovironment states that Red Dragon represents ‘a significant advance in autonomous lethality’ that he uses a visual navigation system and an optical search engine to deal with electronic warfare systems (EW) enemies. These systems are passive and immune to EW attacks by radiofrequency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlv7pgyeuli
Michael Bigneydirector of Aerovironment programs, the War Zone has explained that Red Dragon is designed around a highly automated concept of control of control of control of ‘Man in the optional loop’‘so the user’s interaction is limited. It is based on our visual navigation AV (Aerovironment) patented, the coincidence of digital scenes and the reinforced GPS to reach the target, and then it is based In the automatic recognition of objectives with our spotr-EGGE product line to identify and interrogate objectives‘.
When identifies an objective, The drone sends a signal to the operator to decide whether the attack is carried out or not. Something that the manufacturer has not specified is how Red Dragon behaves if he loses the connection with the operator and if he then carries out his attack or not.
This patented navigation system also fuses data from other sources, including air speed sensors, laser telemeters and ‘optical float’ in their camera for Help determine the position without the need for a GPS connection.
According to the company, a launch system from a catapult on the ground would allow up to five units per minute. In addition, drone is extremely silent, which facilitates surprise attacks.