The AI Machine Gun of the Future Is Already Here

Amid a rising tide of low-cost weaponized adversary drones menacing American troops abroad, the US subject is pulling retired each the stops to support its forces from the ever-present menace of decease from above. But betwixt costly munitions, futuristic but analyzable directed vigor weapons, and its ain increasing drone arsenal, the Pentagon is progressively eyeing an elegantly elemental solution to its increasing drone problem: reinventing the gun.

At the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) lawsuit successful August, the US Defense Department tested an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robotic weapon strategy developed by fledgling defence contractor Allen Control Systems dubbed the “Bullfrog.”

Consisting of a 7.62-mm M240 instrumentality weapon mounted connected a specially designed rotating turret outfitted with an electro-optical sensor, proprietary AI, and machine imaginativeness software, the Bullfrog was designed to present tiny arms occurrence connected drone targets with acold much precision than the mean US work subordinate tin execute with a standard-issue limb similar the M4 carbine oregon next-generation XM7 rifle. Indeed, footage of the Bullfrog successful enactment published by ACS shows the truck-mounted strategy locking onto tiny drones and knocking them retired of the entity with conscionable a fewer shots.

The Bullfrog appears effectual capable against drone targets to impressment DOD officials: According to Defense Daily, Alex Lovett, the lawman adjunct caput of defence for prototyping and experimentation wrong the Pentagon’s Research and Engineering office, told reporters astatine a objection lawsuit successful August that the investigating of the “low-cost” Bullfrog solution had “gone truly well.” Should the Pentagon follow the system, it would correspond the archetypal publically known lethal autonomous limb successful the US military’s arsenal, according to the Congressional Research Service. (The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not yet respond to WIRED’s petition for comment.)

Shooting down small, fast-moving drones with accepted firearms is simply a important situation to adjacent the astir talented marksman, and the US subject has been pursuing assorted ways to marque its tiny arms much effectual against unmanned airborne threats. Those efforts see the procurement of small- to medium-caliber munitions and “buckshot-like” ammo that tin replicate the effects of the shotguns that person proven effectual counter-drone measures amid Russia’s penetration of Ukraine; rifle-mounted vigor frequence and GPS jammers to disorient incoming drones truthful troops don’t person to transportation separate, bulky counter-drone weapons similar the Dronebuster oregon NightFighter; and “smart” optics from companies similar SmartShooter and ZeroMark that purportedly lone let a limb to occurrence erstwhile it locks connected target. The Army has adjacent started integrating counter-drone exercises into its basal grooming regimen, portion of a broader effort to marque specified schooling arsenic “routine” arsenic accepted marksmanship training.

For ACS cofounder and CEO Steve Simoni, a erstwhile Navy atomic engineer, the champion mode to optimize a firearm for drone threats isn’t done caller accessories oregon enhanced training, but a operation of precocious robotics and a blase AI that tin instrumentality the guesswork retired of people acquisition and tracking.