http://www.thedailybeast.com/...thanks-to-a-lobbyist.html

North Dakota police will be free to fire ‘less than lethal’ weapons from the air thanks to the influence of Big Drone.

It is now legal for law enforcement in North Dakota to fly drones armed with everything from Tasers to tear gas thanks to a last-minute push by a pro-police lobbyist.

With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, no one noticed that the state became the first in the union to allow police to equip drones with “less than lethal” weapons. House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a lobbyist representing law enforcement—tight with a booming drone industry—got his hands on it....

(the actual article is far far longer, I just clipped a bit)

...Discuss?

On the one hand, if you are anti-government, you'd oppose it. But if you are pro-law-enforcement or pro-drone, maybe support it?

I imagine it would be pretty scary to be part of a legal, permit-issued protest march and have drones armed with "non-lethal weapons" flying overhead or around you... you know, just in case...

Haha... and then this popped up on my news search in response to clicking on the other one, I think:

http://www.wired.com/...one-killing-laser-cannon/

"Perhaps the biggest disappointment is that the laser doesn’t make a “pew pew” noise. A Boeing rep did say the company’s planning to add a number of sound effects to the control station, to help multi-tasking operators keep an eye on what’s going on when it’s in an automated tracking mode. Hopefully they’ll hire Industrial Light and Magic to appease disappointed laser-lovers."

Weapons on small drones isn't as feasible as people think.

Newton has some things to say about recoil.

That being said, a drone can't beat you after they pepper spray you. The possibility for abuse with drones is probably less than a line of riot police with emotions running high.

Fuffing robots. SKYNET I SAY!

on the recoil question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqHrTtvFFIs

I hope you are right about the behavior piece... I tend to believe (but have no data to support it) that someone at a distance on a video screen has a more itchy trigger finger than a guy staring at other humans in front of him/her... But maybe I'm wrong about that, given your "emotions running high" and "panic" type issues.

https://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU?t=2m2s

I can't watch that video right now but I have done some work with small drones and their adaptation for different payloads. Keeping anything with recoil on target will require gyros and some complex software, thus adding weight, thus requiring more power, thus adding more weight, etc.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but a mass produced reliable platform isn't really in existence to my knowlage.

fluff it, i watched em on my phone.

The first one proves my point with recoil and controlability. That thing will be about as accurate as a storm trooper.

The 2nd one, an FPSRussia video, is fake as fluff. I think it was a Call of Duty promotional video. None of it is real. Where is all that ammo stored? Bullets are heavy. Losing weight through firing them will require trim and power adjustments. It is complex as fluff, and we arnt there yet. I'm sure some DARPA project is working on it though.

I think a practical 'non-lethal' application would be dropping CS/tear gas crystals on mobs. But a drone low enough for that is hugely vulnerable to shoot-down.

I think the camera is the best 'weapon' the cops can have. Getting a pie-in-the-sky view of a mob situation can really help police anticipate problems before they get out of hand (and therefore before it gets to head-busting time). Also a sky-view can help identify leaders. Add in some good zoom to the camera and maybe get pictures of key people for analysis.

Also the video-taking can be overwhelming evidence in criminal prosecution.

There are, however, HUGE legal issues with where police (or any idiot with $120) can fly the thing and when the UAV is taking 'public' area pictures and when it would be required to have a surveillance warrant.

I assume something like pepper spray would be the first "non-lethal" weapon type used. But the article also discussed a taser, so I don't know how far off that is.

perhaps reality isn't a million miles away from 30 year old science fiction ... and getting closer

http://i.imgur.com/sk8SUwQ.jpg

I for one think that the police should only be using surveillance drones without a warrant in public spaces during public events when people would have less of an expectation of privacy than they they do under everyday circumstances. They should have a warrant unless their is a clear, immediate public interest in surveying a situation. If the police need to find out why traffic is at a standstill in a particular area, then a surveillance drone is an effective tool to use for the clear and immediate public interest. If there is a festival going on, then a drone can help the police direct their resources and police the event. Football (any version) game? Use the drone in the area where crowds gather.

Given my general uneasiness with police use of surveillance drones, I don't think they need to be armed in any way. Drones should be used to assist with quicker, earlier police interventions instead of as a police intervention themselves.

Don't you think it's just a matter of time until they figure how to use forward momentum to counter the recoil?

i explained how to counter the recoil, and then explained the current roadblocks to those solutions.

of course that means it is a matter of time, the same as any scientific quest is a matter of time.

The thing is, the genie is out of the bottle. Drones are not going to go away, people are going to find more and more ways to use them.

Shameless plug:

http://edrnet.com/...remains-hazy-parties-say/

A Bloomberg article about drones in my industry I was quoted in. The police and military are always early adopters, but soon enough drones will start appearing in many industries.

Deal with it, and stay on their good side.

The capability is already there and has been for a while. I've used ROVs in the Gulf of Mexico that adjust trim, thrust and power distribution on the fly to various components all from computers that are topside feeding instructions through almost 6 miles of cable. It's insanely fast. They can even manage to handle pile drivers with minimal shaking with the right configurations. From there, it's just adjusting the math step by step to account for the differences in resistance between air and water. Not saying it's easy, but they have a pretty good start.

i understand that, but an ROV isnt the same thing as a drone like a quad rotor that is being discussed here. the difference between air and water is substantial when you are talking about physics. signal transmission through hard lines isnt the same as that through radio or IR or whatever, and it REALLY isnt the same as autonomous control/correction that would be required by an aerial drone. all that computing power is weight. unless you want to theater a quad rotor...

but like i said, it is only a matter of time. the theory is there.

All those computations were handled on board the ROV with a computer about the size of my hand (about 3 Raspberry Pis or so). The biggest drawback was the latency from the TCU (thrust control unit) to the HPU/APU (hydraulic motors) to control the thrusters. I heard the electric ones were much more responsive.

A lot can be achieved through proper design. A 6 rotor disc shaped with mechanical buffers to the weapons platform below (or maybe to the sides) would go a long way over the typical four point quad. It's an interesting issue, for sure. I think I would handle it by having the drone respond to the 'fire' command rather than the actual shot itself. From there it can start the process of adjusting for the recoil before the shot even goes out. With good synchronization the shot would hardly be noticed (at least from the operators perspective). Gonna take a bit to figure that timing out though. :/ Not that I'm not tempted to try... :D

a computer about the size of your hand added to the weight of the UAV and the weight of the camera and the weight of the weapons payload and the weight of the communications and the weight of the batteries.

It all adds up. And they dont all have the addend benefit of neutral buoyancy. unless you want to start a drone blimp company.

im not saying it wont e dont, but i am saying it isnt as close or easy as you are suggesting. My lst job we worked on small battlefield UAVs for surveillance. and the challenges were daunting.

...how big of a weapon are you talking about putting on these things???

does it really mater when your scale is grams?

i bet your ROV's scale wasnt grams, and it operated in a medium far more forgiving than atmosphere.

that is my point. the principals are the same, but the technology isnt there yet.

I'm talking in terms of practical use and therefore feasibility. Sure you could scale to crazy levels if you wanted to go that route but for in town patrols with light armament (and I'm not really for that, either)?

That being said, I like your blimp idea...but have you seen the price of helium lately?

I do not think helium would offset weight by much unless the drone was fairly large.

Cameras these days would add minimal weight to a drone. Thinking a smartphone type camera, which I see as negligible in terms of weight.

The computers do not need to be on the drone. What is needed on the drone are the servo motors and a chipset to control these. Any hefty computation equipment needed can be housed at a base station. Granted they would not be autonomous, then again if this drone fired tasers on a crowd I would like to know there was some form of human decision behind the action. The last thing we need to hear is the drone malfunctioned, so sorry, we will be looking into the software to see why.

This is one of those moments of simply accepting these are here to stay, and they will be weaponized. non-lethal force is just a first step, eventually they will be lethal. As for crowds and protesters they will find countermeasures and adapt. My first thought was nets to render the tasers ineffective, gas masks or even wet bandannas and goggles to render teargas less effective. If low enough probably just find something that can fire foam across the needed distance, maybe even nerf guns to mess with the rotors. I can see where a water cannon could really jack one of these things up. Alternately use very low cost drones (the cheapy $20 versions) to swarm and crash into these things.

As stated earlier high altitude surveillance, out of countermeasure reach, will probably be best use for drones, at least short term. I'm fairly sure the police departments will not want to lose a 5-10K drone to a handful of mini $20 drones cashing into it. These things are way too fragile to be turned into offensive weaponry, unless they can maintain a safe distance to operate from.

mFrost

Having armed drones is something that the powers that be would just LOVE to have. Ford is right about the recoil and Newton's laws of motion however. The drone would have to be much larger and have a high greater power usage to carry a weapon of any kind of significant fire power under the current weapons technology. BUT

The government has been on projects related to making recoilless weapons for some time now and they are using magnetic rail acceleration systems to do it. Recently the Navy has unveiled a rail gun that can fire a projectile more than 20 miles at mach 5 or something like that, thus eliminating the need to have high explosive powder in the shell to fire said projectile. Right now that's too large to put on even the predator drone. But there is another company working on a "portable" rail gun system that can be mounted to most any platform, fires 200K rounds a minute and shoots 50 caliber ball ammunition using magnetic acceleration called the "Dread Gun".

Imagine having those flying around, eh?

The power needed for any electromagnetic weapon will not fit on a drone that is feasible for atleast 40 years. And it isn't exactly a recoil free weapon system. And most barrels in use in development are wear parts. It isn't really the best option for development for this application imo. It is an impressive technology though. One that was actually developed in part on roller coasters.

They are having a hard time fitting it on the ship it was designed to fit on.

Lasers would be more realistic, but they are pretty far away from weapon systems powerful enough and portable enough. There are however laser air defense systems operational that can fit on a combat vehicle such as a HUMVEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-teEbB9vlEU

Just mount an optically guided missile on there, put a laser designator on the drone with a hi-res camera. ID the target, light the target, launch the missile, smoke the target. It's pretty old,proven technology that just needs some miniaturization, no need to get all Autobots on it.

im more afraid of an armed archaic

Too late.

should be cute when they hacked and the police station ends up getting tear gassed just as the drone comes through their window

Magnetic rail guns still have recoil. Newton says so. And given the high fire rate that's a LOT of recoil.

We already have drone blimps....
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/...ter-Than-Air-brochure.pdf

And you could probably put a 25mm cannon on that sucker with full stabilization and fire control. Certainly a .50cal sniper rifle would not be a problem. And probably a hellfire missle with terminal guidance control.

However, that version is a little hefty for police. I mean, its fine for police to have a well-armed SWAT and maybe even armored vehicles for some jurisdictions. But really not comfortable with police having hellfire missles.... :P

This did remind me that we (US Army) have much smaller cable-tethered verions that mount cameras. THAT is a good tool for police - much easier to put up, less operator training, no airspace coordination, longer endurance and ideal for most crowd-control situations. Not so good for stealth surveillance or electronic eavesdropping - the things that present 4th amendment problems.

lol, i actually work for LM. those blimps are teathered and generally used for survalience around bases no? i wasnt aware of any control surfaces or propulsion on them.

A little Derringer .22 wouldn't weigh much, and if they designed the ammo into something similar to a hilti gun they could hold a fair number of shots without adding too much weight. Also the kick from a Derringer wouldn't be too bad if they installed it well

A hilti load is designed after a .25 caliber. I like that idea of not having the weight of the cartridges.