Earlier this year the U.S. Army awarded a contract worth $39.6 million to FLIR Systems for their Black Hornet personal-reconnaissance drones. The 6-1/2”, 1.16-oz. aerial vehicle systems are designed for individual soldiers to transport, deploy, and operate.
The drone’s size makes them easy to carry, but the biggest advantage is their ability to provide a line-of-sight distance of up to 1-1/4 miles and travel at speeds of up to 20 feet per second with minimal noise and in wind gusts of up to 20 knots. The Black Hornet is part of the Army’s new Soldier Borne Sensor Program and will make their debut with the 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team later this year.
The primary benefit is the ability to provide constant data on a soldier’s surroundings via the drone’s video and high-definition photography capabilities. The drones can stay airborne for about 25 minutes in obtaining reconnaissance data while minimizing exposure to potentially dangerous situations.
The personal reconnaissance system includes a unique drone for both day and night, as well as a base station that charges the drone and connects to a handheld controller and display. According to the Army, the Black Hornet mitigates casualties by having a drone handle battlefield tasks that would typically put a soldier at risk.
Early testing shows that soldiers who were trained on the system were able to pick up the technology very quickly, even if they had never flown a drone before. Long term, the Army would like to equip every infantry squad with its own Black Hornet.