Russian drone-mounted rifle to counter UAS.

On March 12, Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property posted the registration of a novel counter-drone drone, an unmanned aerial interceptor vehicle built around a rifle.

The novel counter-drone drone (Picture source: Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property)

With two rotors, it can take off and land vertically, and then level off to fly horizontally, the lifting rotors now working as propellers. It has a wingspan of nearly 10 feet, a total weight of around 51 lbs, and a total flight time of 40 minutes.

“This CUAS drone is in line with in increasing number of technologies and designs created to combat hostile drones,” says Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses. “Russians think that it’s important to fight adversary drones not just from the ground via a number of electronic and kinetic countermeasures, but in the air itself”.

(Picture source: Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property)