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To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#21

Post by dkarl »

1MachineElf wrote: post #15
dkarl wrote: post #9

> The potential of consumer or commercial drones harming world leaders became immediately evident when a protester hovered one close to German chancellor Angela Merkel at a campaign rally in 2013 Pretty arbitrary incident to choose, but I suppose the writer would have felt silly mentioning the flying dildos that buzzed Gary Kasparov at a political event in 2008.

I'm more interested in the potential of world leaders' drones harming regular people.

I have no idea who was responsible for the flying dildos, but Kasparov was an outspoken critic of Putin, so I imagine the incident made him even more conscious of how easily Putin could reach him if he wanted. He continued his political activities, but he left Russia a few years later and announced that he couldn't go back in the near future because if he did he wouldn't be allowed to leave again. He has still not been back, to my knowledge.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#22

Post by MikeDelta »

ericd wrote: post #19
justaguy88 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drone swarm can have a carrier vehicle, like a (perhaps autonomous) big plane or sub to get it within range

Or perhaps a missile full of drones, similar to those bombs with lots of guided submunitions.

Indeed, cheap and available in massive amounts also makes very dangerous.

Funny that we see this in various computer games, ships with drone bays. What you mention would be a drone missile perhaps?

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#23

Post by swiley »

samuelizdat wrote: post #20

Wouldn't the solution be jamming or EMP related? Of course, because the technological system must propagate itself at any cost this idea is counter-intuitive. Technological progress is seen as bending towards an inherent good. People never stop to think if it will be bad. Now people are to live in fear of drone swarms because nobody has autonomy in the technological system. People think they control technology, but i…

At least in the US we're already surrounded by people with firearms. The situation isn't really very new IMO. People have already started committing crimes using quadcoptors and everyone knows about them now. You don't hear about them shooting people because that's already illegal and we have social structures in place to deal with it.

TL;DR if anything this is an improvement because it makes the 2A thing make more sense (almost no one is building guided missiles in their backyard except that one youtuber who's trying to make his model rockets land on their own.)

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#24

Post by MikeDelta »

tarruda wrote: post #3

I wonder how long until DIY weaponized drones are available to common criminals. It doesn't seem like we are prepared to deal with something like this.

I read somewhere that commercial drones with bombs were used in, I believe, Afghanistan against the US forces.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#25

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jessaustin wrote: post #6

In 2018, an unidentified nonstate actor used two explosive-bearing commercial drones in the attempted assassination of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. It's funny to see the phrase "nonstate actor" here, when we're assured that ransomware script kiddies who use Coinbase are all "state actors". Maduro knows who sent the drones. [0] Why is even IEEE Spectrum in ideological thrall to the military-industrial complex?…

Why would think that the IEEE has been enabled by something else than the military-industrial complex?

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#26

Post by korse »

abz10 wrote: post #17
WanderPanda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strap a knife on a fpv rc airplane and you have something as deadly as a sniper

Unlike a bullet you could hear an RC airplane coming.

Actually this isn't a big problem. Quads or RC planes at a reasonable height aren't audible. Add in night and lack of running lights and no one is going to notice.

If you are using a wing, then you just program your robot to come in high, cut it's engine and continue on a glide trajectory to the target. The flap servos make nearly no noise.

If you've got a quad, come in fast and basically huck the vehicle at the target.

Ardupilot + ROS make this all relatively straightforward to implement and provide an easy way to interface with necessary sub-systems.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#28

Post by pmastela »

tarruda wrote: post #3

I wonder how long until DIY weaponized drones are available to common criminals. It doesn't seem like we are prepared to deal with something like this.

> I wonder how long until DIY weaponized drones are available to common criminals.

Common criminals are using commodity drones for reconnaissance [1].

[1] https://www.techradar.com/news/criminal-intent-fbi-details-h...

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#29

Post by f38zf5vdt »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #4

Drones are the new aircraft carriers. That is, pre-WWII, the dominant naval ship was the battleship. Heavily armored, with enormous guns, military planners expected that the battle for the Atlantic and Pacific would be carried out by these monsters slugging it out. Though there were hints that planes could be quite effective against ships, few admirals realized that the longer range of an aircraft carrier would make…

Drones are the new infantry and land mines. For sea battles missiles still dominate, since all you need to do is destroy the ship with the drones.

Drones fly around and autonomously eliminate targets while maintaining perimeters, which replaces infantry doing the same thing. Drones are easy to launch from land-based bases and due to their limited range are best suited to land-based operations.

Aerial drones are easily countered by autonomous weapons systems that fire on drones quickly and accurately. Drones are able to be disabled with a single large bullet, which makes their cost exceptional once countered. I expect that land based drones will become a pretty big thing, since they can take advantage of cover and camouflage.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#30

Post by Manuel_D »

samuelizdat wrote: post #20

Wouldn't the solution be jamming or EMP related? Of course, because the technological system must propagate itself at any cost this idea is counter-intuitive. Technological progress is seen as bending towards an inherent good. People never stop to think if it will be bad. Now people are to live in fear of drone swarms because nobody has autonomy in the technological system. People think they control technology, but i…

I suspect that jamming would push people to make drones fully autonomous, so that they're capable of carrying out their mission even is comms are down.
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