offbeat
Don't worry - it can attack ground targets, too
The US military is adding autonomous gun-based counter-drone systems intended to reduce its reliance on expensive interceptor missiles. Defense robotics firm Allen Control Systems (ACS) announced a deal with the US Marine Corps on Monday to get its Bullfrog autonomous weapon system attached to the Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS) expeditionary counter-drone platform. L-MADIS consists of pairs of off-road vehicles, one carrying a suite of sensors and the other slated to be outfitted with a Bullfrog autonomous weapon station.
Bullfrog systems are a little different from your typical AI-controlled counter-drone systems in that they’re not built with an attached weapon, but are designed to slot in “any legacy or modern firearm” in order to turn them into systems able to “detect, track, and defeat incoming threats at a fraction of the cost of even the least expensive kinetic interceptors.”
In other words, ACS claims it's cheaper to build a system that can adapt existing military firearms than to invest in a purpose-built counter-drone weapon system. Bullfrog units provide the AI, computer vision, and precision aiming robotics to take out drones, while the military only has to plug in its own hardware.There are several variants of the Bullfrog available from ACS, with units designed for everything from the M240 machine gun to the M2 50-caliber machine gun. The company is currently working on M230 chain gun and M134 minigun variants as well. In the case of the Marine Corps contract, it appears the service is taking on some M240 variants based on a link in ACS’s press release to the M240-variant’s page.
