Imagine a cheap, tiny, hovering aerial drone capable of being
launched with the flick of a person’s wrist and able to provide
manipulable 360-degree surveillance views. It’s real, it’s
inspired by maple seeds, and the company behind it, Lockheed
Martin, envisions a future in which swarms of the new drones can
be deployed at a fraction of the cost and with greater
capabilities than drones being used today by the military and
other agencies. “Think about dropping a thousand of these out of
an aircraft,” said Bill Borgia, head of Lockheed Martin’s
Intelligent Robotics Lab, in a phone interview with TPM, “Think
about the wide area over which one collect imagery. Instead of
sending one or two expensive, highly valuable aircraft like we
do today, you could send thousands of these inexpensive
aircraft, and they are almost expendable.” The new drone which
looks like very similar to a maple seed, with a small pod-like
body attached a single whirring blade, is called the Samarai.
The name is derived from the Latin word