Turkey does first exports of ‘kamikaze drone’ Kargu
Turkey has exported its autonomous rotary-wing attack drones – also known as kamikaze drones – produced by a Turkish defense company, STM, for the first time, the firm has announced.
After high-level negotiations, the first contract for exports of STM’s Kargu drones was signed, the firm said in a statement.
“Under the contract, the delivery of Kargus will be completed in 2021,” it said.
The destination country for the drone exports was not named.
Ismail Demir, the head of Turkey’s Defense Industries Presidency said on Twitter that with its advanced capabilities, the Turkish defense industry continues to open up to the world.
With its advanced machine vision abilities, Kargu can function both as a single platform and as part of a swarm of up to 20 platforms, as proved in exercises that began to be conducted in 2019.
The Kargu-2 is already used effectively by the Turkish Armed Forces in the field.
The Kargu-2 grabbed international headlines this month after news organizations ran a story based on a U.N. Security Council report. It is capable of performing fully autonomous navigation vis STM’s flight control system. In addition, the platform is able to perform precision strikes for low signature, beyond the line of sight targets. It is capable of Vertical Take-Off / Landing (VTOL).
According to the Turkish developer of the drone STM, Kargu-2 is an attack drone that has been designed for ‘asymmetric warfare’ or ‘anti-terrorist operations’ which can be operated remotely by just a single operator up to 10 kilometers away from the target.
Once the target is locked, Kargu drone can be used to target both static and moving targets moving at a speed of 72 km/hour. The drone weighs around 7 kilograms and can work in tandem with other drones to create a swarm of drones that can loiter over targets and attack.
In the report, a panel of independent experts suggested that a military drone used in Libya’s civil war last year may have attacked soldiers without human control, bringing the Kargu-2 and its manufacturer, STM, under close scrutiny.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
