Honeywell XM156

The XM156 Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a portable, remote controlled vertical takeoff mini drone, produced by Honeywell. It weighs less than seven kilograms and is able to educate enemy positions and movements in urban warfare. With the termination of the Future Combat System program by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the project was transferred to Team Modernisation in the successor program brigade combat.

The drone is to autonomously fly to the location and to navigate. In addition to education, it serves as a communications relay for the infantry squad in difficult terrain. The complete system ( a drone, a control unit and individual parts ) fits in a backpack and weighs 20 kilograms. It can also be operated from vehicles. The drone can stay for 50 minutes in the air and reach an altitude of up to 3000 meters.

Since June 26, 2008 prototypes were in Iraq. November 10, 2008 90 Micro Air Vehicles ( MAV ) Block II were ordered for $ 65 million from Honeywell of the U.S. Army and should be delivered in 2009. In tests it was found that Class 1 in the use of offensive starting points as too bulky, too heavy and too loud perceived and therefore of the test soldiers UAV Raven was preferred. As a consequence thereof, the work was stopped on the project in January 2011 and decommissioned there in February.