BAE Systems plc have been showing off their rather clever robotic warfare concepts at the Farnborough Air Show this week and the main event to send the competition into the corner sulking is this droidplane named Mantis.
This twin-engined aerial machine could be compared to the better known American Predator but BAE seems to have taken a leap over the competition by announcing that this one will be fully autonomous.
Most UAV’s are remotely controlled by ground operators and have a few automatic functions, the all new Mantis however is setting new standards.
The precise details of its on-board capabilities are still under wraps but we do know visible and infrared imaging, ground-scanning radar and a likely laser-dot pointer for guiding bombs successfully to target will be inside.
Displayed at the airshow with mocked up smartbombs and “Brimstone” tankbusting bombs on-board it has some money saving software inside to keep a check on communications costs.
An on-board processing unit allows the Mantis to use less bandwidth when getting radar data updates and offers savings of potentially thousands on the British forces “pay-as-you-go” satellite communication costs.
