At first glance, with its small size and simple design, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Black Hornet drone was anything but a child's toy. However, at an estimated $28,000 per unit, it's anything but. The Black Hornet has offered troops a bird's-eye view of a battlefield since the early 2010s. Small enough to slip into a pocket and quiet enough to make it hard to detect, the diminutive drone is ideal for short-range reconnaissance, from looking around corners to peering inside buildings, without putting humans in harm's way.

The U.S. Army started testing this feat of miniaturization in 2016 before fielding them two years later. It's already seen several iterations, with the latest one, the Black Hornet 4, arriving in 2023. It weighs just 70 grams and launches in under 20 seconds. It uses a 12-megapixel camera with a high-resolution thermal imager capable of capturing video in low light.…