The Pentagon has given a new shotgun-wielding drone its stamp of approval. It also comes with a grenade launcher.

A drone armed alongside a shotgun has been added to the Pentagon's catalog of uncrewed systems approved for acquisition by the US armed forces and another national agencies.

Shotguns are commonly seen as a last row of defense against uncrewed airborne systems. Now, US troops could discover themselves using a drone armed alongside one instead.

Earlier this month, Skyborne Technologies' AI-enabled Cerberus MI was approved for the Blue UAS List. The drone is a small, man-portable UAS that the business says was specifically designed to assimilate the recoil of attached weapons. The business says the airplane weighs concerning 40 pounds, can fly for approximately 35 minutes whenever armed, and affect targets at a range of complete 300 meters.

Instead of merely mounting a shotgun on a commercial, off-the-shelf drone, Skyborne purposefully designed and built the airplane alongside the recoil of a CHAOS 12-gauge shotgun in mind.

In supplement to the shotgun, Cerberus MI can additionally be armed to transport a HAVOC 40mm low-velocity grenade launcher. An controller can dispatch the drone into action, blaze its weapons, and fly it rear for reloading. According to Skyborne, that makes it a reusable substitute to one-way assault systems that are typically destroyed following striking a target.

The idea of arming drones alongside shotguns isn't new. Ukrainian defence business 3DTech, for example, developed a drone armed alongside a six-barrel recoilless shotgun scheme to fire downward enemy drones. Other companies are following akin technology, including Federal Ammunition, Mossberg, and Palladyne AI, which are collaborating on the SwarmShot project.

The Pentagon's Blue UAS program was established in 2020 to acknowledge drones that encounter US authorities standards, particularly cybersecurity and provision sequence rules. Last year, the Defense Contract Management Agency launched an authoritative website cataloging the models approved for use.

The DCMA stated that the catalog would expedite the procedure of getting drones into troops' hands as the US Department of Defense and another national agencies shove to quickly merge uncrewed systems into operations. Drones, drone parts, and application are part of the program.

A important concentration of the catalog is identifying drones that encounter restrictions on Chinese-made components. According to the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, Chinese companies authority 90% of the business drone market. US officials have raised concerns concerning Beijing's leverage complete the market.