Helicopter Robot Armed With Shotgun
Some knuckleheads in Huntsville, Alabama, have irresponsibly outfitted an AutoCopter mini helicopter robot, made by Neural Robotics Incorporated, with a 12-gauge SHOTGUN. They call it the "AutoCopter Gunship". The article on the other end of the link unconvincingly attempts to justify this project as having some kind of military or counterterrorism application. But it might be great for home security. I want one. Here comes the VIDEO!
11:24 AM * PERMALINK * 63 comments
Comments:
I don't think I would want one of these, unless they fired recoil-less rounds. Even a few rounds totally stop this helicopter.
This is utterly retarded. The above commentor is spot-on, the gun would most likely tear the rigging apart, or at least, put a LOT of wear on the rotor mount/fan blades.
I would think, for a home defense application, that a 410 shotgun would work just as well: we're not necessarily going to need firepower, so much as... well, surprise.
Who's going to expect to be attacked by an RC copter? Especially one mounted w/ ordinance.
Personally, I'd fit a paintball gun to it. Sounds like a lot more fun :-D
Only in Alabama...
yes i would imagine that a shotgun wasn't the best option but still interesting none the less
Where can i buy one cheap?
how could you not want a helicopter that shot a shotgun???
I think the bigger problem would be, what if this robot glitches and shoots the wrong person? Also, who would go to court?
There's no such thing as a recoil-less round -_-.
Unless you're talking about that centrifuge thingy.
Another unmanned attack helicopter:
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/dragonfly-uav-now-equipped-with-metal-storm-technology-015778.php
This sounds like my cousin Richard. LOL
Can the helicopter handel the recoil? It is a semi-auto so I know a lot of the recoil is handled there.
ROBOTZ WITH SHOTGUNS FUCKING RULE! OMG I WANT 5! I'M GOIN TO USE IT TO GET INTO CLUBZ IN MIAMI FOR WINTER MUSIC CONFERANCE BITCHEZ!!
zomg can this thing dance!!?!???!
There is a such thing as a recoil less round. Do your research before making statements about things you do not understand.
There is no such thing as a re-coilless round, as you said, but there are weapons deisgned to absorb the recoil trough the barrel. Im not sure how much it absorbs, but paintball would be definatly more fun! the new robot wars!!!
All in all, I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney.
OK, nobody has even asked... Wouldn't this be extremely ILLEGAL?! Wouldn't BATF jump on these idiots the instant this was published?
Last I heard, you couldn't buy a new fully-automatic gun. Neither could you make your own gun; at the very least I think you have train and become a licensed gunsmith - without a license, it's illegal.
If neither of those is legal, how the f--k can this be legal?! IMO, this is MORE dangerous than either full-auto or homemade - at least then the gun is in the hands (control) of a PERSON!
With this, a glitch in the commands from the handheld r/c control could cause it to fire... and I am sure there are any number of other possibilities.
What if the 'copter gets close to a tree, you panic and hit the wrong button? Or a bird shits on your head, startles you, you drop the control, when it hits the ground the gun fires while pointing at a person?
Gaaaaaah!
Dick Cheney just ordered one.
Just think, if Cheney had one of these he could have mistaken an old man for a quail from the comfort of his own living room!
Now THATS cool!
2nd Amendment: Right to bear arms. Guess this would fall under that category, afterall we are in the year 2006.
Just about any semi-auto, shoulder-fired load would be fine on a copter of that size.
Most of the recoil energy is used to eject the spent round an load the next.
An M16 or 12 guage semi-auto recoils only slightly more than a .22 rifle...I've gone through many rounds of those and many others myself.
I've never been more proud to live in the Rocket City than I was after I read this article. OMG, you would NOT believe the size of the squirrels around here. Don't let them try to put a "military" spin on this one, this thing is purely for varmint control. :-)
Nah come on, it is certainly over the top but it shows Joe Public is making strides previously thought only possible through Gov't funding. Personally, I would have have come up with a full auto (or high burst) caseless .22 cal. Same effect and possibly more devestating. You go caseless to decrease the weight and full auto for a spray and pray; because you just know accuracy would be an issue with something like this.
I see a drone army in our futures...
Just wait until every bumpkin in AL has one of these .. then we'll have some good news to watch ..
just put the dread gun on there. DREAD gun = no recoil, no muzzle flash, little to no sound, and it fires 3200 rounds per second.
More for military application rather than "Home defense."
but this is more than an answer to those complaining of recoil:
http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=539
This is a cool idea. Some soldiers in Iraq posted to an R/C forum I frequent awhile back wanting something like this, but with a camera not firearms.
I own a ton of firearms and a few R/C helicopters like this... for some reason I never though to put the two together... :)
Anyway... That silver box between the skids is not a standard R/C component... I wonder what it is? Flight control computer? A gyro mounted to counter the recoil of the firearm?
Anyone have a link to more information about this?
...whats with all the "sky is falling" comments? Yeah, you MIGHT hit the trigger on accident. You MIGHT crash your car and die in a ball of fire. An asteroid MIGHT smash into Earth and kill us all. You MIGHT get struck by lightening. You MIGHT get hit by a truck. You MIGHT get ripped to shreds by a stray dog.
Can't live in a world based on what MIGHT happen....
I think the DREAD would be too heavy for that helicopter. According to the defensereview link it can only lift about 20 lbs.... I would think the dread would have to have its motor, controller, power source, ammunition, magazine/loading mechanism, and whatever else required to fire. Plus the tail rotor would have to compensate even more rotational force than it already does. Unless the dread was mounted vertically.... hmmmmm maybe it would work.......
I don't think the recoil would be an issue at all... it would just push the heli back a bit, depending on how its mounted to the frame. Plus you have gyros to counteract whatever force the gun puts on the heli.
woooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I gotz me a new toy
Officer, I couldn't possibly have killed that man, i was here in the park racing my remote controlled car... dozens of people saw me here...
Grab your bird dog and a couple of RC attack helis and have some very unfair advantage over the local waterfowl
Did the thing ever manage to hit its target. I think that every shotgun round missed in the video.
Well, even SkyNet had to start small. :-)
first off the author of this thread is totally taking this out of context and its not a bunch of hillbilly rednecks.... NRI has been around for a few years now and mainly provides video and camera platform helicopters to news stations etc etc... they have stepped into the govt market and have met all the required guidelines, certificates, laws to do such testing and for this particular project you can see some of the history on this project since its almost a year old at the site posted below:
http://www.defensereview.com/article846.html
If you really want to know more about Neural Robotics Inc. (NRI) and not just hear all the made up stuff other people are posting here why don't you check out their website: www.neural-robotics.com You might find that actually going to the source can give you better information.
This is the greatest crowd-control device ever invented.
This won't help save the lives of soldiers. This platform is totally unsuitable for weaponization by garage enthusiasts, just barely out of the garage. This is a bunch of Alabama good ol' boys, who have shoehorned a gun onto a customized model helicopter. MIL-SPEC COMPONENTS DO NOT EXIST FOR THIS PLATFORM, so these clowns are using LOTS AND LOTS PARTS THEY PICKED UP AT THEIR LOCAL HOBBY SHOP. They are lucky no one was killed in the making of their little video. In fact in the video, you see the rear of the skids nearly snag the ground. Anyone who has flown and crashed a gas powered helicopter (and anyone who has done one has done the other), knows that as the rotors take there last gasp and the heli flops around on the ground, the electronics SOMETIMES GO CRAZY. It's not hard to imagine a crash where the LITTLE TOY SERVOING MECHANISM THEY ARE USING TO PULL THE TRIGGER OF AN AUTOMATIC SHOTGUN goes to full deflection while the helicopter flops around on the ground spraying everyone in sight whether it be our boys in the field, or these crazy rednecks.
This is not even to say anything about the effectiveness of such a platform. Look at how much the barrel of the shotgun deviates from a heading lock. Even at the short distance they demonstrate in the video (which would get your $60,000 worth of tax money blown out of the sky), the deflection is HUGE and you're SPRAYING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT, no doubt without enough lethality to affect a target. If they ever sell one of these things, I hope they like lawsuits and the guilt associated with putting our soldiers at risk.
I concur with the last post. Let's just hope these "knuckleheads" have not yet reproduced. They'll soon be out of the gene pool.
A message to everyone who tried to debug this ... please, let's not go out of our way to create SKYNET, ok? We're too close as it is.
I only wonder why they did not place a remote aiming camera onboard. No more accuracy problems then. This is interesting. I doubt much real use but fun non the less.
Beats a Georgia Treestand!
No round is recoil-less, simple physics prove this. You don't have to be a gunsmith to own a full-auto. You just need to fill out the federal forms, pay the fees, live in a free state, and buy it from a class three dealer. A muzzle break/barrel porting would help out greatly in the recoil department. Oh, and Hunter, semi-auto shotguns kick a hell of a lot more than a 22.
continued...
"this is the greatest crowd control device ever" Are you serious? Pepper spray, beanbag rounds, and the baton come to mind. A crowd could simply knock this POS out of the air with rocks and then use the shotgun against police. Leave the UAVs (or UASs as they are now called) to the military with its Predator.
continued...
"this is the greatest crowd control device ever" Are you serious? Pepper spray, beanbag rounds, and the baton come to mind. A crowd could simply knock this POS out of the air with rocks and then use the shotgun against police. Leave the UAVs (or UASs as they are now called) to the military with its Predator.
continued...
The dread gun still has recoil, it is just to the side. Think of it this way...if you spin something in a circle and let go you will move slightly back (90 degrees from the direction of the object). They even say in the article that there is no REARWARD movement of the shooter. Now if the made two dread guns mirror images of eachother and then mounted them together...
A MP5 SD has very little recoil, my suggestion for the oul weapon type.
You guys are all retarded monkeys.
Neither could you make your own gun; at the very least I think you have train and become a licensed gunsmith - without a license, it's illegal.
Not true. You can manufacture firearms without a license or paperwork as long as a) you never transfer the completed firearm to anyone else (can't sell or give it away to anyone, not even your children) and b) you're legally allowed to possess a finished firearm in that configuration.
Essentially, you need to make sure that you don't run afoul of things like the NFA (full-auto, silencers, short-barreled rifles/shotguns, and some other stuff) and the import ban (some firearm configurations need to be built with a certain number of domestically manufactured parts otherwise they're considered imports and banned).
Making a semi-auto 12ga shotgun with a long enough barrel would be perfectly legal as long as you're not already prohibited from owning firearms.
This looks like great fun!
As for the ongoing "recoil" argument: rockets don't recoil.
e.g., LAWS, bazookas, etc.
("Hunter" must never have shot a semi-auto 12-ga, to have said it recoils no more than a .22; I'm 6'4 and 235 lbs, and I sure as the dickens can tell the difference!)
Insider..This is a special military version Full auto shotgun. It uses a proprietary recoil reduction technique that produces about 20LBS of kick. This is extremely light for a 12 gauge. A small woman can fire this gun from the hip with no problem. The chopper is not a toy.. a military prototype and will be able to maintain on target along with the gun..even with the recoil. There is a special shells that can go with this which is armour piercing or another which can penetrate then explode. Example: bad guys in a 2 or three story house fly this up and take out the room and leave the house intact. Technology at its best..
Insider..This is a special military version Full auto shotgun. It uses a proprietary recoil reduction technique that produces about 20LBS of kick. This is extremely light for a 12 gauge. A small woman can fire this gun from the hip with no problem. The chopper is not a toy.. a military prototype and will be able to maintain on target along with the gun..even with the recoil. There is a special shells that can go with this which is armour piercing or another which can penetrate then explode. Example: bad guys in a 2 or three story house fly this up and take out the room and leave the house intact. Technology at its best..
are they sending it to Iraq?
Kick ass who doesnt need one of these. Most practical thing since sliced Bread.
brainiacs, huntsville, where this helicopter was built, is the home of one of the largest concentrations of military weapons development (i work in missile development) facilities in the nation. it also has the third largest concentration of scientists and engineers in the US because it has the third biggest NASA facility and is one of the few places on earth to act as a space port. this is not a bunch or red necks but a military contractor with a prototype system probably designed for IED destruction at a distance. It could fly down the road at a much faster rate than a robot on the ground and fire into a suspected IED long before the convoy gets there. what are you people, retarded?
from NRI's website, it is not a robot, it has an opeator
The AutoCopter is a self-stabilized unmanned mini-helicopter that can be used as an aerial platform in the sky. Applications include aerial photography, surveillance, pipeline and utility line inspection, convoy escort, and mine detection. For those wanting to perform aerial photography the helicopter will maintain stability and position at any altitude up to its design limit of 7000 MSL. Payload capacity 15-20 pounds, depending on configuration. An aerial video system can be provided at additional cost.
The company's patented neural network-based flight control algorithms provide "intelligence" to the system. The operator, without any helicopter piloting experience, can maneuver the helicopter (via the joysticks on the transmitter) forward, backward, sideways, and vertically. Basic avionics consist of a PC/104 computer, attitude & heading reference system, GPS receiver (WAAS compatible), and heading-hold gyro. An optional Ground Control Station (GCS) permits remote mission planning and real time telemetry.
http://www.neural-robotics.com/Products.htm
Cool, I want two. Rc heli combat!
Actually...ifyoui're spending the cash...i'd say a couple P90's straddling a camera for ease of targeting at range...with the 5.7 round there will still be recoil but considerably less and it wouldn't effect the flight at all compared to a 12 ga. semi or full auto...the casing ejects out of the bottom of the gun so there'd be less to worry about there. It would be a lot more accurate and high velocity rounds would work better for a much extended range that one could engage the "varmit" with ease of you could enhance the level of zoom on the camera. ALso...the magazines can be altered to hold 50 rounds per weapon in an extremely compact size. You could easily hold more if you just re-engineered the magazines but in all seriousness 100 rounds would be plenty for the short duration of flight you'd get from whatever fuel that thing could hold. Ah.. the video just loaded. With the weight of that gun so far out to the front it HAS to throw the natural balance of the copter off. All in all i'd say good job. Work out the bugs and streamline it a bit and i'll take one :)
Im building one of these here remote controled helicopters so Iz kan protect my double wide, errr, home, yeah home ! the 12-Gauge im sure and be swaped out fer a AR-15 ill bet. also want to have a tube mounted rocket system. yep home protection, thats the ticket
It's just amazing what drivel is opted by anyone that goes crazy anytime "gun" is mentioned. By the looks of the machine it is well designed and not a toy, but a prototype. Just because it was developed in Alabama does mean that some "Redneck Loser, Trailer Park trash" is killing time between beers. Get a life and turn on your brains. If you can put a real time camera and VR goggles on an RC plane don't you think this might have the same? Cut your anti-anything-remotely-violent rants and go hug a tree, leave the serious thinking to someone that uses common sense before they start screaming.
Hmmm ... armed RC helicopter. I've considered rigging a Lama v3 coaxial micro heli to fire a Mini Maxx solid propellant model rocket. Blast shield & firing mechanism, coupled with unwillingness to incur any real or imaginary NFA violations quashed the program - also ran out of beer & the trailer park already got rid of the pigeons I was a-gonna smoke ...
YEEEEEEEHHHHHHAAAAAAAAWWW
OK! Saving my $$$! Already know what I'm getting myself for Christmas '09!
Sadly, perhaps, but the remote controlled, armed attack helicopter is the future, even if this "Autocopter" has a long way to go.
Look at the new Predator drone, armed with 4 Hellfire missiles, controlled by pilots 6,000 miles away or more, sitting at consoles.
Imagine swarms of dozens or hundreds of small, cheap, disposable attack helicopter armed not with a shotgun but more likely a light recoiling round like the .223.
They would hover out a hundred yards or more and snipe from the sky. Almost impossible to see or hear until it's too late. With dozens of them circling around enemy ambushes, mortaor crews, RPG teams...they would be shot to bits, like being attacked by a swarm of real killer bees. They would be cheap, if a few got shot down, so what, they'd be picked up and modular parts would make repair fast and easy.
They could also hover hundreds of feet straight up and drop grenades on targets. Insurgents usually fire and run, knowing they can get out before heavy air support shows up. Not any more if these things get deployed. They are like an electronically projected soldier who can fly at 70 mph and out flank any enemy, in day or night.
The Wright Flyer looked funny, too, at first. It wasn't until the Second World War that the airplane was realized to be a devastating war machine that changed everything.
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