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Israel Is Buying Copter Drones for Urban Warfare
(Defense One) Patrick Tucker - The Israeli military is buying small multi-rotor drones modified to carry a machine gun, a grenade launcher and a variety of other weapons to fight tomorrow's urban warfare battles. Lt. Col. Raziel "Razi" Atuar, a 20-year veteran of the Israeli military and a reservist in the Israeli Special Forces, co-founded Duke Robotics in 2014 along with a paratrooper-turned-robotic engineer and another IDF buddy. He says he was tired of watching his comrades die in chaotic street battles. A former battalion commander, Atuar fought in several Israeli urban warfare operations, including the 2014 operation in Gaza - the kind the U.S. military believes will typify fighting in the decades ahead. Because of recoil when a weapon is fired, a quadcopter hovering in the air will likely be knocked out of position. If you rig a pistol to a quadcopter, the drone will move chaotically with every shot. The TIKAD drone made by the Florida startup distributes the backward momentum in a way that keeps the vehicle stationary in the air. In 2015, Israeli Special Forces took out a target with a sniper rifle mounted on an off-the-shelf consumer drone supplied by Duke Robotics.