Meet the $40K Nano Drone, the Black Hornet

Spend a little time online, and you'll be treated to hundreds of drone-taken videos. The drone is everywhere. Hollywood uses them, architects use them, average, everyday folks have them, and of course, there's the military. The Black Hornet 2 drone, (aka: the PD-100 PRS) is a pretty cool piece of military tech. It's price tag ($40,000 each when purchased in bulk) is a bit too hefty for most of us, but to Uncle Sam, that's quite a deal.

From Business Insider:

US Special Forces are testing a tiny bug-like drone that could change the future of warfare.The teeny flying robot, called the PD-100 Black Hornet 2, weighs 18 grams with cameras and fits in the palm of your hand. The device, which can fly for up to 25 minutes with a range of two miles, also features both regular and thermal cameras.

The British military has been deploying the drones in places like Afghanistan since 2013, but now the U.S. military is running the devices through their paces.

While the device may look like a toy, it’s certainly not priced like one. The PD-100 Black Hornet 2 prices at about $40,000 for larger orders of the device, said Ole Aguirre, VP of business development for Prox Dynamics. But considering that the Pentagon plans to spend approximately $2.9 billion on unmanned systems for the fiscal year of 2016, according to the Drone Center at Bard College, the $40,000 price tag doesn’t seem so significant.

It also appears that the Black Hornet is not the only drone our military is considering/developing.

Reports earlier this week revealed that the military is in the early stages of developing its own mini-drones. According to Military.com, these drones are built to swarm in a manner that would confuse enemy radar systems. In other words, the small devices could potentially overwhelm the enemy by providing so many targets that they find it hard to take them down. The devices could also be used to cover an area with sensors so that they could survey an area and collect data.

Take a look at our "swarming locust" drones: