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PSB Buys Tiny German Spy Copters, Builds Army of Cyborg Pigeons

Posted on February 27, 2007 by davesgonechina


Noah Shachtman caught this story from Flight Global over at Wired’s Danger Room blog:

German-headquartered SIM Security and Electronic System says it has sold an undisclosed number of its Sky-Eye quadrotor UAVs into China for use by a civilian police organisation. Total sales of the existing system, including the Chinese orders, have exceeded 30 units according to Yves Degroote, Brussels account manager for the firm.

Noah says:

Sales of drones are tightly controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. Companies usually have to get special clearance to market the things — even in friendly countries. I’m no ITAR expert, but I believe sales to countries like China are even more carefully monitored. About a year ago, officials at Yamaha in Japan were busted for shipping nine robo-copters to the Beijing regime.

Does anybody have any idea how you say “quadrotor UAV” in Chinese? Or would these just be called 天眼 after the brand name?

UPDATE: It’s China time in the Danger Room as Sharon Weinberger points to an English People’s Daily article on Chinese scientists success at controlling the flight of pigeons with brain implants. But they don’t have a picture, so I’ll help by adding the Chinese article.


Since China is rather short on pigeons (at least not in cages), obviously these are for overseas operations. The robocoptor won’t be noticed on the streets of Shanghai, but free flying pigeons would probably surprise the hell out of people. Check out the Shangdong Science and Technology University Robot Research Center website for things like the Electrical Powerline Repair Robotic Arms and other stuff that, so far, is nowhere near as cool or gross as a pigeon with a chip in its skull.

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6 thoughts on “PSB Buys Tiny German Spy Copters, Builds Army of Cyborg Pigeons”

  1. Anonymous says:
    February 28, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Word on the street is there is no scientific reasoning behind it. None whatsoever. Be a whole different story if they were, in fact, trying to make a bionic pigeon. Clearly that would rock:

    http://pigeonblog.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/shocking-bird-news-chinese-turn-pigeon-into-a-robot/

    As it stands, pigeons everywhere are feeling well disturbed.
    Your pal
    Brian P

  2. Anonymous says:
    February 28, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    wow, I am the first to post that I think vivisection is not a good thing. I love this kind of research, generally; I think it is cool, useful and exciting. However, animal testing like this is immoral. I’m not a PETA extremist or twit, but it makes me a little sick to my stomach to see the brain exposed like that. Hope it doesn’t fly into a ceiling anytime soon. Or get bit by a mosquito.

    And I hope the subject is on strong pain management regimen. But somehow I doubt that.

  3. Anonymous says:
    February 28, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Reminds me of hanibal movie.

  4. Anonymous says:
    February 28, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    I saw something on the history channel about bizzare weapons that were developed for WW2. One of the ideas that the US tested was to attach tiny incindiery devices (tiny napalm bombs) to bats and release them over japan. The bats would naturally go to dark places (attics, garages etc.) and the bombs would go off at a certain time and burn down the towns and villages etc. It was so effective that the proving ground buildings burned to the ground when a few bats escaped. They even devised a way for a larger “bomb” to float to earth and release the bats as they got closer to the ground. Anyway pigeons could probably carry a bigger bomb and also can be trained to fly to certain locations(and in this case guided to the target). Just a thought on possible military applications.

  5. Anonymous says:
    March 3, 2007 at 9:17 am

    Has everyone forgoten avian influenza? Bird flu? No one ever suspects the butterfly (simpsons) If a butterfly flaps its wings on this side of the earth a huricane on the other.. Plausible deniability of the origins of the next super outbreak in wherever it happenns if bird flu taught us anything is that these guys are efficient at biological delivery. For years we have used the other life forms on this earth for our own pleasure and now it looks like theyll be remote controled for our destruction hmm irony? no? oh well think about it some but not for long The chickens calling a your local fast food.

  6. Anonymous says:
    September 16, 2007 at 6:33 pm

    Thanks for the nice post!

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