The era of fully automated strike drones are within technological reach, according to German drone start-up Stark, as the race to develop weapons capable of selecting and striking targets independently heats up. The war in Ukraine has accelerated investment in drone technology, with some companies touting their precision and lethality at a fraction of the cost of tanks or missiles. Many unmanned systems can already navigate autonomously and track moving targets, but Philip Lockwood, managing director of Munich-based Stark, said the deployment of next generation drones — that do not require human approval to pick and hit targets — was “not far off”. While the EU has expressed support for banning fully autonomous weapons, it has yet to legislate on the issue, and efforts to reach an international treaty through the UN have made slow progress.
But Lockwood, who previously headed innovation at Nato, warned other regions may have fewer qualms about deploying such weapons. “I think that we should be concerned that our adversaries like Russia and China [ . . .] are not going to have concerns about how these systems are used,” he said.

Full report : Munich-based drone startup, Stark says deployment of fully autonomous drones on the battlefield is ‘not far off.’