Russia claims to have destroyed 90% of Ukraine’s drones through jamming. That figure is unconfirmed, but a report from RUSI, a UK-based think tank, found that in the early months of the war, drones had an average lifespan of just three days before being disabled.
Even some specialized military drones are vulnerable. The US sent RQ-11 Raven reconnaissance drones to Ukraine in 2016, but they were quickly grounded because they could not operate under heavy electronic countermeasures from the Russian military.
Inherent Weakness
In the early days of the war, drones, mostly Mavics made by China’s DJI, helped Kiev’s tank-hunting teams stalk their prey in cities and towns. They also performed reconnaissance and surveillance missions, indirectly locating artillery, tanks, and mortars.
But even before the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, military researchers noted that radio communications were the “Achilles heel” of consumer drones. Meanwhile, Russia is an electronic warfare powerhouse, possessing a series of powerful jamming systems capable of cutting off communications, or emitting sound waves with wavelengths that overwhelm drone control signals, as well as GPS signals.
“In some areas of Ukraine, DJI drones can’t even take off because of interference on all frequencies,” said Ivan Tolchinsky, a former Israeli Defense Forces sniper and founder of Atlas Dynamics, a company that supplies drones to the Ukrainian military.
To solve this problem, drones are equipped with new frequency-hopping systems that can scan radio waves, detect which frequencies are being jammed, and automatically switch to a new frequency. However, this is not a long-term solution in the war.
Decentralized distributed communication
Atlas Dynamics is developing the next generation of tri-rotor drones based on the mesh broadcasting principle - a setup where each transmitter acts as a node that communicates with its neighbors, forming a powerful communication network.
For example, a drone in a deep valley may not be able to communicate directly with its controller, but it can still communicate with another drone above to receive commands from the commander. This could theoretically happen with multiple “hops.”
The company is currently testing a setup that includes up to 5 drones/network with a single operator.
“The idea is to increase the capacity of the network to 50 drones at a time, but more importantly, to create a common ecosystem,” Tolchinsky said, referring to the different drones operating in the same network to specialize in different tasks for each device. For example, a high-flying drone maintains communication, while lower-flying drones are equipped with different types of sensors, potentially even connecting robots on the ground.
The operator then becomes a “swarm” commander, managing the drones to do most of the work themselves and only needing to make important decisions.
Integrated chip optimizes hardware power
According to Atlas Dynamics, the drones will be equipped with programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are essentially microchips that allow for the creation of specialized processors that efficiently leverage hardware power for a specific application without having to build a billion-dollar factory.
The technology has been researched and developed by the startup for the past five years, since before the war broke out, and is expected to be officially released later this year.
Tolchinsky said the core issue of the next generation of drones is not only to equip new, more advanced equipment, but also to reduce the maximum cost of each device, so that users no longer have to worry about expensive aircraft being shot down.
“There are some very expensive drones in Ukraine, but they don’t work because they’re afraid of malfunctioning or being shot down. They have to use something cheap enough,” said the former Israeli sniper.
The traditional military sector has faced a trend of increasingly complex and expensive equipment. For example, the Predator 1 spy plane started out as a $1 million camera-equipped seaplane, but quickly evolved into the $22 million Reaper stealth machine.
But military drone manufacturers can’t afford to keep pushing prices up when they have competition from low-cost civilian drone manufacturers. Not to mention, when war breaks out, cheap, efficient equipment will have an advantage over sophisticated but expensive hardware.
(According to PopularMechanics)
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