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The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

mwi.usma.edu

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Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#11

Post by gotocake »

walrus01 wrote: post #8
devoply wrote: post #2

I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country could sell this sort of service for hundreds of billions of dollars to another country like an insurance policy. Entire wars could be made impossible. It would be great progress for the world.

anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto 12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells. Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those. Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones…

...100 years later it’s all nanoscale and we’re living in ‘The Diamond Age” and wondering where it all went wrong.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#12

Post by walrus01 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #10
walrus01 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto 12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells. Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those. Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones…

anti anti drone swarm drone drone swarm: a swarm of those.

or, fly a C-17 sized aircraft at FL400 over the anti-anti-anti-droneswarm and drop many metric tons of unspooled fine gauge fishing line. More seriously though, if small drone swarms will be limited in the altitudes that they can reach (being limited by battery life, not enough motor runtime to ascend to FL200, travel laterally, and then down to a ground attack again, for instance), any modern air force that can establish air superiority over a battlefield... Will have a lot of different options to attack drone swarms from above.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#14

Post by xrayzerone »

torgian wrote: post #9

I’ve brought up this eventuality countless times in the past couple of years (including recently mentioning this in my software company). I don’t think people are realizing the dangers to minitrization and ease of manufacturing small drones that could kill people. Either through mini bombs, or carrying diseases. What are we doing about it? Seems like we aren’t doing anything

Some people are doing things. There's an outfit at DIU (Defense Innovation Unit) called Rogue Squadron who's job it is to conduct counter-UAS research.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#15

Post by fernly »

devoply wrote: post #2

I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country could sell this sort of service for hundreds of billions of dollars to another country like an insurance policy. Entire wars could be made impossible. It would be great progress for the world.

What are the aerodynamic abilities of a drone swarm? That is, to what altitude can a swarm reach, to interdict an incoming aircraft? How fast? My impression of current drones is that they are fairly small, less than 2 metres diameter, which implies pretty tight limits on range, altitude, speed, and time-on-station. So even if you have thousands of them, a conventional bomber can come over at an altitude the swarm can't reach -- or a fleet of bombers can hang off the border for hours, probing at random, until the drones run out of juice -- or a fighter can make a fast pass, dodging the much slower-climbing swarm, and drop chaff or smoke or an EMP weapon to confuse the swarm.

Bottom line, I seriously doubt drones could permanently block access to a national airspace.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#17

Post by KineticLensman »

Not mentioned in the article in the context of hardening is the use of electromagnetic pulse weapons as the basis for anti-drone swarm countermeasures. You don't need to jam their comms or disrupt their nav or hit them with shotgun pellets if you can glitch the unhardened control circuitry of their little motors.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#18

Post by robotresearcher »

walrus01 wrote: post #8
devoply wrote: post #2

I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country could sell this sort of service for hundreds of billions of dollars to another country like an insurance policy. Entire wars could be made impossible. It would be great progress for the world.

anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto 12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells. Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those. Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones…

Drones are small and hard to see with small cheap sensors. You have to see them to shoot them, the range of a shotgun is very small, and the sky is a big place.

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#19

Post by themodelplumber »

abledon wrote: post #16

“Start learning mandarin _now_ people!” — quote from a guy in my office who is only learning mandarin because he is sure Chinese will take over world in coming decade

That is funny. I remember a rancher friend taking me on a tour of his property here in rural NorCal a few years back. He pointed at a gap in the distant hills and said, "when they come, that's where they'll come from. And when they do...we'll be ready." I had to hold back the laughter.

I believe this mental exercise was mainly just the motor component for his gun hobby, a little convenience of the subconscious.

And at the same time I also 100% believe he could hold off PLAN marines better than the average guy. :D

Re: The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming

#20

Post by leovander »

pierrec wrote: post #13

I'm surprised there's no mention of the short film "Slaughterbots" on this exact topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en It's very well done and has an HN vibe to it (with a dark twist, of course).

And just about a year before that on Black Mirror.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/

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