The Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System (ARSS) was an experimental robotic weapons system that was in development by the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

since 2005, but no information about the status of the system has been made public since 2010. The ARSS consisted of a remotely operated

sniper rifle A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment and optics for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses of the military sniper. The modern sniper rifle is a por ...

attached to an unmanned autonomous helicopter. It was intended for use in

urban combat Urban warfare is combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both the operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and t ...

or for several other missions requiring

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

s. Flight tests were scheduled to begin in Summer 2009. The rifle, a semiautomatic RND Manufacturing

Edge 2000 Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

firing the

.338 Lapua Magnum The .338 Lapua Magnum (8.6×70 mm or 8.58×70 mm) is a rimless, bottlenecked, centerfire rifle cartridge. It was developed during the 1980s as a high-powered, long-range cartridge for military snipers. It was used in the War in Afghanistan and ...

cartridge, was mounted on a stabilized platform, which was attached to the underside of a Vigilante 502

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

. The helicopter was to be flown by an autopilot while a human controller aims and fires the rifle, which may fire up to ten well-aimed shots per minute. The rifle platform, called the ''Precision Weapons Platform'' (PWP), was designed by

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

’s

Space Dynamics Laboratory Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) is a nonprofit government contractor owned by Utah State University. SDL was formed in 1982 from the merger of Utah State University's Electro Dynamics Laboratories (founded in 1959) and the University of Utah's ...

and was equipped with a

situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...

camera and a two-level zoom

scope Scope or scopes may refer to: People with the surname * Jamie Scope (born 1986), English footballer * John T. Scopes (1900–1970), central figure in the Scopes Trial regarding the teaching of evolution Arts, media, and entertainment * Cinem ...

. The system as a whole was being developed under the Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate in the course of its ''Aerial Delivery of Effects from Lightweight Aircraft'' (ADELA) program. It used much commercial off–the–shelf hardware to reduce cost and development time. For instance, the system was controlled using an Xbox 360 video game controller. Other weapons considered for use with the ARSS included the

M249 The M249 light machine gun (LMG), also known as the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), which continues to be the manufacturer's designation, and formally written as Light Machine Gun, 5.56 mm, M249, is the American adaptation of the Belgian F ...

M240 The M240 – officially the Machine Gun, 7.62 mm, M240 – is the U.S. military designation for the FN MAG, a family of belt-fed, gas-operated medium machine guns that chamber the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. The M240 has been used by the ...

machine guns, the

AA-12 AA-12 may refer to: *R-77 The Vympel NPO R-77 missile (NATO reporting name: AA-12 Adder) is a Russian active radar homing beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. It is also known by its export designation RVV-AE. It is the Russian counterpart to ...

shotgun or

non-lethal weapons Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional ...

. The ARSS hardware could also be installed on fixed-wing UAVs or ground combat robots. The

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

One Shot sniper system was being considered for addition to ARSS.McHale, John
Laser-based sniper system ordered by DARPA from Lockheed Martin
''Military AeroSpace'' 18 December 2010. Accessed: 19 February 2011.

References

{{reflist

External links

ARSS website at the Space Dynamics Laboratory

4MB brochure
Airborne military robots