Spy-Butterfly: Israel developing insect drone for indoor surveillance

RT ^ | 5/19/12

[LibWhacker]

The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams - the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings.

­The new miniscule surveillance device can take color pictures and is capable of a vertical take-off and hover flight, just like a helicopter, reports the daily Israel Hayom. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) says this may come in handy in ground clashes, when a soldier would merely take it out of a pocket and send behind the enemy’s line.

The insect-drone, with its 0.15-gram camera and memory card, is managed remotely with a special helmet. Putting on the helmet, you find yourself in the “butterfly’s cockpit” and virtually see what the butterfly sees – in real time.

“The butterfly’s advantage is its ability to fly in an enclosed environment. There is no other aerial vehicle that can do that today,”

­Structures under observation can be anything from train stations or airport terminals – or office buildings – to battlefields and even forests in, say, southern Lebanon, where Israel believes Hezbollah hides its ambush squads.

The virtually noiseless “butterfly” flaps its four wings 14 times per second. Almost translucent, it looks like an overgrown moth, but is still smaller than some natural butterflies.

This is bio-mimicry, when technology imitates nature. And this has proved to hide a trap. When the device was tested at a height of 50-meters, birds and flies tended to fall behind the device arranging into a flock.

The IAI, Israel’s major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, needs two more years to polish their “butterfly” project. The product seems to fall into the trend of reducing drone size. Their recent models promoted for city observation and conflicts were the Ghost, weighing 4 kg, and Mosquito, which weighs only 500 grams.

While the “butterfly” may bring “a real technological revolution,” as the developer predicts, to the military field, questions remain how it will change the civil life. The drone is also propped up for police use and there is little doubt that secret services will be only too happy to grab such an intricate weapon.

[LibWhacker]

A few more tidbits of information (that at least I haven't seen before) leaking out about this technology, this time from Israel.

The future is going to be... interesting. May you live in interesting times!

[Pollster1]

At least for now, in the battle between good and evil, good has the technological advantage. I hope that’s still true by the time we get the communist out of our White House.

[1010RD]

I’m not certain you’re correct.

[Slings and Arrows]

Hoo boy, if you thought the Arabs were paranoid NOW...

[Fireone]

“When the device was tested at a height of 50-meters, birds and flies tended to fall behind the device arranging into a flock. “
I’ll call BS on that. The only reason a bird follows a butterfly is to eat it.

[Dusty Road]

I must say the comment section in that link was interesting.

[samtheman]

Reminds me of the scene in The Fifth Element where the President squashes the spy-cockroach with his shoe.

[Bobalu]

Integrated circuits the size of a tiny speck can perform surveillance of audio/video/?

A crude form of the tech is even getting out to the public at large for 2 dollars.

Just look at this 125 channel 2GHz transceiver that can handle 2mbits/second data rate...the output RF is small but the distance covered can be enormous. The receive sensitivity is impressive. Just imagine how tiny this tech can be made if price is no object!?

Ebay seller of these small xcievers

How far can this sort of sub milliwatt transceiver operate? To a simple antenna perhaps 300 yards. With a 24db dish at each end perhaps 20 miles (such a dish is 50.00 retail) To the NRO 350ft dish systems at 23,000 miles in geo orbit they would have a BIG signal.

Remember, these trinkets are for tinkerers. The sophisticated stuff is far smaller. Of course the 2.4GHz band is saturated and the NRO sats would literally be swamped with signals at these common frequencies. Microwave ovens are at 2450Ghz and would be a particular noise source from orbit. But many other frequency ranges are very quiet.

Want to attract a lot of serious attention? Build a very wideband jammer that covers say 2.5GHz to 100GHz with a weak signal of a few milliwatts.... and just let it run.

As an aside, one of these 2 dollar 2.4GHz transceivers would be detectable by the deep space tracking system if you fired it up on the Martian surface....and this thing can sit on the tip of your finger.

[C210N]

There is also...

[BuffaloJack]

There’s another article (with photos) here:
http://www.rt.com/news/israel-drone-indoor-butterfly-672/

[dog breath]

If only for the sheer pleasure of increasing Muslim paranoia, it would be worth saying we have this technology. The cultural nervous breakdown of Islam should be encouraged, they should suffer from the insanity of their religion as much as their neighbors.

[C210N]

Israel developing insect drone for indoor surveillance...

Nothing new here. The 'rat party has been developing drone robots for clandestine activities for MANY years... Of course, they are still quite a ways from perfecting the technology, as they are not quite yet at the insect size (their drones are far from miniaturized, weighing in anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds). These robots are designed for the marxist battlefields across the US, and under their control, can infiltrate a polling place with ease. Typically, the robot programming occurs 364 days a year, night and day. Then, they carry out their pre-programmed operations on one day, typically in the fall...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

They’ll believe anything.
Including butterflies that kill.

[the invisib1e hand]

I hate seeing stuff I wrote about 20 years ago actually happening.

[shove_it]

Butterfly???

[Mister Da]

Seems a logical progression to go from surveillance butterflies to deadly wasps or killer mosquitoes. Why use a JDAM when a drop of poison can do the trick?

If you have ever been stung by a wasp or bee, you know you didn't see it coming & there wasn't anything you could do to avoid it, anyway.

One little bug could seriously ruin a terrorist's day!

A swarm of deadly wasps could quickly empty a nuclear research facility or a missile launch site, maybe permanently - surely for a good while. Ravenous locusts, with a taste for electronics, could trash enemy weapons & equipment. Security systems work pretty good at detecting human intruders, but detecting deadly mosquitoes will be a lot harder - stopping them, even more difficult.

How will you defend yourself or carry out you mission when attacked by a swarm of 1000 or 10,000 killer bees?

If you think my numbers are exaggerated, consider that high tech companies product thousands of tiny integrated circuits every day.

[Road Glide]

Wait until Homeland Security and the police departments get ahold of these things...