The United Kingdom Ministry of Defensce (MoD) have been keen of equipping the British Armed Forces with small-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to boost their surveillance effectivness in Afghanistan. The MoD put out a tender for a contract that can be worth up to £20 million for these systems as reported by The Guardian in March 2011.

Finally, the nano-UAV contract was awarded early ths November to Marlborough Communications Limited with its sub-contractor Prox Dynamics which will initially start at £2.5 million and follow-up options as originally announced worth £20 million. Marlborough Communications Limited is a UK military communications and signals intercept specialist whilst Prox Dynamics is a Norwegian company that sells and develops small unmanned aircraft systems.

The nano-UAV that will be utilised by the MoD is the PD-100 Black Hornet PRS (Personal Reconnaisance System) which is smaller than a regular palm of the hand,  making it ultra portable and geared towards the following:

Missions

• Search and Rescue
• Reconnaissance Inside Structures
• Look Behind, Between and Below Obstacles
• Birds Eye View for Situational Awareness
• Object Identification
• Proximity Surveillance
• Crowd Control
• Inspect Nuclear Installations
• Check Chemical Plants after Incidents and Accidents

Since the Black Hornet is small, it is much affordable, reusbable and can be expendable when a unit needs to bug out immediately. If you are used to those small RC helicopter units, then learning to use the Black Hornet will be easy with tht exception that the controller also has a video monitoring unit that can provide real time video stream with up to 1000m line of sight digital data link, and up to 30 minutes of flight endurance.

The Black Hornet weighs 1kg which safely meets the minimum of less than 1.7kgs requirements of the nano-UAV contract of the MoD. Since the Black Hornet is really small, its main task will be mainly surveillance and reconnaissance rather than have some offensive capabilities such as being mounted with a weapons.

I wonder if it can be done with those existing sub-micro RC helicopters that are worth £50 or higher. You will need to a mount a mini-HD camera that can transmit video and images to a smartphone unit such as an iPhone or Android Phone and be able to control it with such. If it's feasible and can be allowed for civilian use, then we might have our own version for airsoft use.