DARPA has approached the industry to create a small, single-use, unpowered delivery drone that will self-destruct once its mission is over.
Image: DARPA
Project ICARUS will take advantage of advances from the Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR) program, which has developed self-destructing electronic components, over the past two years.
The objective is for the vehicle to deliver food, perishable vaccines, insulin, and blood and plasma products in areas of crisis.
Forgoing the need to recover the vehicles “would relieve response teams from the logistics task of packing and transporting the vehicles out of the affected region while essentially eliminating environmental impacts from the vehicles’ deployment.”