Turkish Military to Receive Over 500 Kamikaze Kargu Drones Soon

Turkish firm STM is preparing to deliver over 500 Kamikaze Kargu unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the military soon.

These autonomous rotary wing attack drones entered Turkish Armed Forces’ inventory around a year ago, Anadolu Agency reported Monday. The drones are still undergoing improvements.

With its advanced machine vision capabilities, Kargu can function both as a single platform and as part of a swarm of up to 20 platforms.

Efforts continue in this field to streamline and improve swarm algorithms to perform different tasks. In addition, Ankara is trying to integrate Kargu with marine platforms, armored land vehicles and autonomous land systems.

According to the report, the drone has been tested in “different countries.” STM is in talks with three countries for the export of the drone.

Turkey’s KERKES Project aims to provide image-supported autonomous navigation capability to UAV Platforms in combat environments where GPS information is not available or where GPS is jammed/deceived. This project will enable the drone swarm to function smoothly in any environment.

Twelve to eighteen months after completion of the KERKES program, STM could offer Kargus with full swarming abilities to the Turkish Army.