KARGU-2

Turkey’s man-portable quadcopter loitering munition with embedded machine-learning autonomy — the world’s most-cited alleged lethal autonomous weapon, now in service with multiple NATO and partner armies.

Overview

The KARGU-2 is a battery-powered quadcopter loitering munition developed by Turkish defence engineering firm STM. Designed as a man-portable, squad-level precision strike asset, it carries an anti-personnel or armour-piercing warhead and uses on-board machine-learning image processing to detect, classify and track targets, even when the datalink is severed. The system can be operated with a human in the loop or in a fully autonomous “fire, forget and find” mode that drew the attention of the United Nations and international humanitarian law bodies after the 2020 Libya conflict. KARGU-2 first entered Turkish service in 2018 and has since been exported to Azerbaijan, Peru and at least one European NATO/EU member, with the manufacturer claiming deliveries to 15 countries on four continents by early 2026, according to STM and Army Recognition.

Development

STM began work on the KARGU concept in the mid-2010s, leveraging Turkey’s expanding indigenous unmanned systems base. The first flight occurred around 2017 and the type entered Turkish Armed Forces service in 2018 for counter-terrorism and cross-border operations, as noted by Wikipedia. In June 2020 STM announced it was preparing delivery of more than 500 units to the Turkish military, a milestone widely reported by Forbes. Formal export marketing began in 2021, and initial orders from Azerbaijan and Peru followed. An armour-piercing warhead variant was integrated in 2024; its first export contract was confirmed by STM in May 2025, with a second deal announced the following month by Army Recognition. In January 2026 STM disclosed that a European NATO/EU member had taken delivery of KARGU and ALPAGU systems, integrating them onto armoured vehicles and national battle-management networks.

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