ISIS builds quadcopter “bomber” with DJI drone and badminton supplies

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Enlarge / The Matrice 100, DJI’s development platform for industrial drone apps, appears to be the Islamic State’s newest bomber. (credit: DJI)

On the morning of February 23, Iraqi forces moved through Al-Buseif, Iraq as they began their assault against the Islamic State (IS) held Mosul Airport. All the while, a quadcopter drone buzzed overhead. Sara Hussein, a reporter with Agence France-Presse covering the assault on Mosul, reported via Twitter that the Iraqi Army had brought down the weaponized drone, and her driver managed to take pictures of it after it was grounded.

The drone was armed with a pair of small bombs constructed from what appears to be a 40-millimeter grenade—the type fired by infantry grenade launchers. The bodies of the bombs are made of PVC pipe, and they have tails made from badminton shuttlecocks.

Anyone who’s looked at buying a consumer drone would likely recognize the logo on the antenna atop the downed drone: it belongs to DJI, the Chinese company that manufactures the Phantom drone Ars’ Lee Hutchinson flew (and crashed) in 2014. The model used by IS in this case, however, is the Matrice 100, an industrial drone built by DJI as a pre-built platform for drone developers and sold as part of a “Smarter Farming Kit.” Priced at $3,300 for sale in the US on its own and for $8,300 as a kit, the Matrice 100 is not exactly in the price range of most military drones. But it is capable of 35 minutes of flight time per battery and has enough power to carry up to 1.2 kilograms of additional payload—as well as UART interfaces to plug in accessories like bomb release servos.

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Source: Ars Technica – ISIS builds quadcopter “bomber” with DJI drone and badminton supplies