The latest bomber to make its debut over Iraq has four engines, no cockpit, and a flight time limited by the length of its battery. ISIS, the radical insurgent group holding territory in both Syria and Iraq, is fighting for its life in Mosul, the large city in Northern Iraq it has held since 2014. Most of the weapons ISIS uses are are familiar, if still horrific: rifles and mortars, artillery and suicidal car bombs. To that arsenal, ISIS recently added commercial drones, converted into tiny bombers.
Hopefully, you don't have to fret about risks like car bombs in your everyday life, but it's good to know that somebody is worrying about it—and coming up with technology to help deal with those sorts of threats when they do arise. The European Union-funded Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Recovery Tool (AVERT) project is a system intended to remove suspicious vehicles where there is concern over potential threats like IEDs, but the vehicle can't be safely accessed by other bomb disposal tools.
