Comment by bmitch3020
20 hours ago
I'm surprised this isn't already happening in Ukraine. They could fly small surveillance drones deep in enemy territory, perch on a power line, and send back lots of data. Not just video, but also sound and triangulating signals. This would also be useful in fog by monitoring major roads where high altitude drones and satellites would be obstructed.
I'm not like a drone-i-ologist or nothin, but from what I gather, both sides have gotten really good at detecting and jamming drone communication in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which would probably make that a tough use case. I've read that the newer attack drones are controlled by a reaaallly long, reaaalllyy thin fiber optic line!
New attack models are using shielded electronics that don't need GPS and are immune to traditional jamming. Relying on computer vision and old school navigation math.
Go ~X speed for Y distance(+/-) on Z heading until you reach A landmark and then start a new set of instructions.
Yeah, but not in ukraine. They brute forced fiber, fly by wire.
Dead reckoning via inertial sensors, cameras, etc are way to complex for the flight controllers without heavier hardware since theyre hugely inefficient.
AI at the sophistication to do this stuff is essentially bloatware. Like running electron instead of a bare metal gui.
I’m interested in reading up on that. Where did you see it?
4 replies →
At the end of WW2 the very same happened. As if they didn't learn from history. Well, that are Chinese drones, which weren't part of the signals war then.
The idea would be to use autonomous drones, so they wouldn't need to communicate, the problem would be that the GPS signal is jammed.
If they're not communicating, how are they sending back lots of data?
2 replies →
Those fiber optic lines only work 50-60% of the time. Often the drones are carried 20km on foot into position which sucks as you know half the equipment on your back won't work.
Where did you see that?
How do they not work? Just fail in transmitting data completely? Do you have a link to learn more about this?
3 replies →
A jammed drone that's perched on a power line wouldn't fall out of the sky, and doesn't need to transmit 24x7, only when it detects some activity. The lack of a signal from it would itself be a signal of where the next attack is coming from. Anti-jamming weapons (missiles and autonomous drones) would also be useful, that lock on to any signal jamming sources and deliver the munitions directly to the target that's advertising itself.
as soon as it sends RF it'll be located and destroyed.
There has been lots of work to make fibre connected drones, so that they can't be located as easily (also the pilot)
There's also powerline communication that these drones could use, relaying a signal to a second drone perched back in friendly territory. And if the military is going around blowing up all of their power transmission lines, that's also going to hurt them.
How many intact and tactically relevant cross border transmission lines between Ukraine and Russia can there be?
1 reply →
I wonder if the power line could be damaged if they dry to take out the drone?
Why not lasers through the air?
Line of sight only, alignment is very hard, and if youre near the where its pointing you light up like a christmas tree
The problem is signal jamming which forced using fiber.
So the limit isnt batteries, its fiber spools.
The radio links and navigation are the hard parts.