Geek hacks flare gun into wireless camera drone shooter

If you need to get an idea what is on the other side of a wall or other obstacle you can't see over in a situation where looking over the obstacle yourself could get you or someone else hurt you need a drone. The catch is that not all law enforcement agencies have access to drone of any sort. A geek named Joshua Marpet showed off a new drone device he made from a 37mm flare launcher at the Defcon convention recently.

The modded flare gun fires a cartridge that can send images back from a small digital camera that is inside the shell. The idea is that the weapon could be used by police to get an idea what the bad guys are doing. The flare gun uses the Firefly single-use spy cam developed by military contractors from Israel. The device has potential use in the civilian sector as well.

It could be used to aid in search and rescue missions or for watching a kidnapper for instance. The camera is shot 500-feet into the air and can send back 8-seconds worth of video details to give a glimpse of what might be hidden to those using the camera. The camera shoots the images to a wireless receiver using 5.8GHz tech.

[via PopSci]