South African company Desert Wolf has built a drone called the Skunk, which aims to keep track of and control riots.
The drone is equipped with speakers, cameras, strobe lights and four paintball guns strapped to its chassis, according to The Verge.
The guns can fire different kinds of ammunition from four different hoppers, such as solid plastic pellets, dye markers and capsules of pepper spray.
Each gun can fire up to 20 bullets per second, totaling 80 rounds every second, CNET reported.
The Skunk, described by Desert Wolf as a "riot control copter", includes eight electric motors with 16-inch propellers. It can lift 45 kilograms and carry 4,000 pepper spray paintballs, plastic balls or "non-lethal" ammunition. The speakers serve to warn crowds, while the strobe lights and "blinding lasers" disorientate victims. The Geneva Convention prohibits blinding lasers from being used in war.
"These weapons cannot be sufficiently well controlled to avoid causing serious injury, especially to eyes," said Mark Gubrud of the campaign group the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. "Many existing 'non-lethal' crowd-control weapons can and often do kill."
The Skunk is controlled by a pilot and a payload operator, who is given the task of controlling the drone's weapons, The Verge reported.
Hennie Kieser, director of Desert Wolf, said the two operators will be monitored by cameras and microphones while working to make sure they aren't too aggressive.
Desert Wolf sells off-road equipment and trailers, and has also begun selling UAVs and high-tech surveillance, CNET reported.
The managing director of the company said it is finalizing orders of the drone from "mines in South Africa, some security companies in South Africa and outside South Africa, some police units outside South Africa and a number of other industrial customers."
Long strikes at the country's mines have led to many incidents of violence, The Verge reported.
Mine owners are looking to use the Skunks to control and subdue their workers.
