A technology-enthusiast has invented a Nerf gun turret that can automatically track and shoot down small drones. The ingenious contraption uses the Lidar capabilities of a Kinect v2 sensor, and a milled steel two-axis gimbal, all controlled by software based on the OpenCV AI library, which is geared towards realtime computer vision.

The turret is the handiwork of self-described engineer and inventor Drew Pilcher, who's been working on the turret for over five years.

"It just seemed like a cool project," he tells New Atlas. "I've always been really interested in the CIWS [close-in weapon system], so that was the inspiration. Since I shared the project a lot of people have suggested that this would be great for keeping animals out of gardens and other pest control."

But it wasn't until May 29 this year that the turret achieved the crucial milestone for any device designed to shoot down drones: it shot down a drone – a Tiny Whoop micro-drone, to be precise. The difficulty is a result of getting all the constituent parts to work together, Pilcher explains.

"It was very difficult to get all the PC libraries to work with each other," he says. "The Kinect data doesn't come in in the same format as OpenCV expects, and the images OpenCV produces aren't the right format for the OpenGL GUI element. It was pretty easy to fire up some example code and get each part working separately, but to get them all working together in the same program took about 90 percent of the programming time. The tracking code and computer vision was easy by comparison."