For any watchers who are curious, or want something to put their teeth into, let me add another clue. The program began with a gasoline powered but unmanned Hughes 500 to develop the software. Then they created their own program specific electric helicopter that is much too small to support human pilots, but is large enough to support missiles and guns. It’s small enough to hide in the backyard of an empty house. And it’s smart enough to find its daily hiding/recharging place all by itself. And it knows when to wake up and go hunting. Day after day, until the ordnance is expended.
PS: If it’s too cloudy, it will just wait until it has a full charge, so it might skip a day or two here or there. But when it’s recharged, it will take off again on fully autonomous hunting missions.
Or I should say, it “could” take off etc. The concept and platforms have been fully tested and proven. Putting it into combat use, say, hunting ISIS terrorists in the Islamic State, is simply a political decision at this point. Not technical. Only political.
All the technologies are in production to make a hunter/killer drone for small areas. The autonomous nature of the Reaper is enough for that to be established.