How do you make a maple seed cool? Turning it into a state-of-the-art single-wing helicopter drone that soldiers and police officers can carry into the field, and that they launch by hurling it like a boomerang, is a pretty good start.
The idea behind Lockheed’s new Samurai drone is to mimic the motion of the helicopterish maple seeds we amused ourselves with as kids to create a simple flying mechanism. The stripped down design lets the drone operate with just two moving parts, and come in at about a foot long. It’s a prototype for now, but when it makes it to the field it’ll be operated by remote control, and will be carried into the field in a lightweight backpack. [Navy Times via Slashgear]