Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 214 posts

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

#71

Post by abz10 »

korse wrote: post #65
abz10 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ardupilot will not hit a human size target. People can barely do it. You're not going to lob a tumbling quad at a target with any accuracy that's a joke. To do this with any reliability you need custom software and probably hardware. It'll look more like a smart munition. But it'll also be more difficult than strapping a knife to a RC plane.

First, we aren't talking knives. Second, who said the quad was tumbling? Significantly cutting engine speed and removing significant lift forces on a quad in order to kill the buzz doesn't mean it will start wildly gyrating. Third, Ardupilot will get you within a few feet of a specified point with a good enough vector and speed. Luckily you can use a subroutine (secondary control program) to handle the final approach…

We literally are talking knives on RC planes; see the comment I originally replied to. You are moving the goal posts.

A quad will tumble with the motors off, the whole thing is a significant lift force. It was a big problem in early controller software where throttle dead zone would turn off the props. A problem I personally experienced. Maintaining any semblance of stability requires active adjustment.

And no, Ardupilot will not get anything going at high speed to within a few feet in 3d space.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #56
mLuby wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're talking a commercial quadcopter drone, is it feasible to auto-target it via microphones and then shoot some CIWS at it? Something like this https://youtu.be/LThD0FMvTFU?t=42 but drones and bullets instead of mortars and lasers. It's be nice if you could slap an anti-drone turret onto your vehicle to protect the airspace for a hundred meters. Maybe jamming exceeds commercial drones' flight ceiling, but if not…

There are a number of bulky systems intended for larger targets which will work against drones, but most are not very portable. Ship-mounted systems such as CWIS do work.[1] But all those shells that don't hit the target land someplace. [1] https://youtu.be/3UVuV5WvraQ

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by UnpossibleJim »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #51
coderintherye wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far, that article indicates, drones have been unable to yield a decisive advantage in any conflict Drones gave Azerbaijan a decisive advantage in the recent conflict with Armenia: https://www.csis.org/analysis/air-and-missile-war-nagorno-ka...

Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against. The fact is the "killer bot" scenario is just a one time thing. After it happens, all cities or armies or whatever, will have very solid defences installed against swarming or even just loitering bots. Flying drones are incredibly fragile and exposed. They are slow and easy to kill.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/reaper-drone-m...

Not all drones are AI, there are remote drones that are very fast and very hard to kill, pulling Gforces that would make normal pilots pass out. With the US declaration that drones are "munitions", we have effectively stated that we can launch them into the airspace of countries that we aren't technically at war with, and claim it was "border fire", like we did with Afghanistan.

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

#74

Post by mlyle »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #68
sliken wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slow and easy to kill? Seen a drone race? At what range and with what weapon would they be easy to kill? How long would the kill take? At what range could the drone be killed at? Sure often drones fly in straight lines or hover. But in an adversarial environment they could easily move pseudo randomly and be quite difficult to kill.

Modern CIWS are designed to be effective against substantially faster and more agile rockets. Drones really are slow and easy to take down compared to guided rockets and especially kinetic ones, and the military has been working on means of defending against those for decades. The Phalanx is being modified to serve as an anti-UAS system, for example. The challenge is more to do with detection than firing.

Deploying point defense technologies over a city/civilian targets has some obvious problems, though.

Lasers, electronic countermeasures, tangly stuff, etc, are much more attractive than systems that fire thousands of cannon rounds per minute or that launch explosive missiles.

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

#75

Post by sliken »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #68
sliken wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slow and easy to kill? Seen a drone race? At what range and with what weapon would they be easy to kill? How long would the kill take? At what range could the drone be killed at? Sure often drones fly in straight lines or hover. But in an adversarial environment they could easily move pseudo randomly and be quite difficult to kill.

Modern CIWS are designed to be effective against substantially faster and more agile rockets. Drones really are slow and easy to take down compared to guided rockets and especially kinetic ones, and the military has been working on means of defending against those for decades. The Phalanx is being modified to serve as an anti-UAS system, for example. The challenge is more to do with detection than firing.

Dunno, do agile rockets dodge? Or just follow a simple preprogrammed patterns (like low, then pop up to attack from above)?

Not sure a CIWS system that can hit a mach 2 missile that doesn't dodge would necessarily handle the same $$$ spent on a N cheaper drones. How many minutes of firing do modern CIWS systems typically have?

Loitering at max engagement range and dodging might well end up using ammo at a rate that the CIWS can not sustain.

Also I suspect any CIWS can get a kill on just about any part of a missile, where drones often have very small kill zones (often battery or gas, payload, motor(s), and control) that might well be just a few % of the size of the drone.

I googled the phalanx, looks like it typically has a drum of ammo that lasts for about 3 seconds. Is that 3 drones worth? 10? 100?

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

#76

Post by trhway »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #51
coderintherye wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So far, that article indicates, drones have been unable to yield a decisive advantage in any conflict Drones gave Azerbaijan a decisive advantage in the recent conflict with Armenia: https://www.csis.org/analysis/air-and-missile-war-nagorno-ka...

Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against. The fact is the "killer bot" scenario is just a one time thing. After it happens, all cities or armies or whatever, will have very solid defences installed against swarming or even just loitering bots. Flying drones are incredibly fragile and exposed. They are slow and easy to kill.

>Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against.

no. Azerbajan/Turkey went into it only after verifying that it works, to the devastating effect, against the Russian made air-defenses in Syria and Libya. Now Ukraine has bought these drones and is starting their production. In the next year or two we'll see them being used to the same great effect in Donbass. So far Russia hasn't managed to come up with any meaningful defense. If anything the recognition of the issue has only started to dawn on them, and by the time they manage something the Turkish/Ukranian (they discuss collaborative development) drones will improve another level up - drone capabilities at the current stage (beginning of the hockey stick) are much faster to improve - add speed, a bit of stealth, [partial] autonomy, coordinated swarming. It is a new paradigm shifting generation of warfare like iron navy ships, machine guns, planes, missiles, etc. were in their respective times.

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

#77

Post by mlyle »

sliken wrote: post #75
jcrawfordor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern CIWS are designed to be effective against substantially faster and more agile rockets. Drones really are slow and easy to take down compared to guided rockets and especially kinetic ones, and the military has been working on means of defending against those for decades. The Phalanx is being modified to serve as an anti-UAS system, for example. The challenge is more to do with detection than firing.

Dunno, do agile rockets dodge? Or just follow a simple preprogrammed patterns (like low, then pop up to attack from above)? Not sure a CIWS system that can hit a mach 2 missile that doesn't dodge would necessarily handle the same $$$ spent on a N cheaper drones. How many minutes of firing do modern CIWS systems typically have? Loitering at max engagement range and dodging might well end up using ammo at a rate that t…

> Also I suspect any CIWS can get a kill on just about any part of a missile, where drones often have very small kill zones (often battery or gas, payload, motor(s), and control) that might well be just a few % of the size of the drone.

I guarantee you that just grazing a drone with a 20mm round will still kill it, even if you don't "hit" anything critical. :P

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

#78

Post by dougmwne »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #68
sliken wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slow and easy to kill? Seen a drone race? At what range and with what weapon would they be easy to kill? How long would the kill take? At what range could the drone be killed at? Sure often drones fly in straight lines or hover. But in an adversarial environment they could easily move pseudo randomly and be quite difficult to kill.

Modern CIWS are designed to be effective against substantially faster and more agile rockets. Drones really are slow and easy to take down compared to guided rockets and especially kinetic ones, and the military has been working on means of defending against those for decades. The Phalanx is being modified to serve as an anti-UAS system, for example. The challenge is more to do with detection than firing.

Does it at all change the equation that you could trivially fly the drone 2 feet above the ground?

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

#79

Post by sliken »

mlyle wrote: post #77
sliken wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, do agile rockets dodge? Or just follow a simple preprogrammed patterns (like low, then pop up to attack from above)? Not sure a CIWS system that can hit a mach 2 missile that doesn't dodge would necessarily handle the same $$$ spent on a N cheaper drones. How many minutes of firing do modern CIWS systems typically have? Loitering at max engagement range and dodging might well end up using ammo at a rate that t…

> Also I suspect any CIWS can get a kill on just about any part of a missile, where drones often have very small kill zones (often battery or gas, payload, motor(s), and control) that might well be just a few % of the size of the drone. I guarantee you that just grazing a drone with a 20mm round will still kill it, even if you don't "hit" anything critical. :P

Really? Say you blow a 1" hole in a wing that's got some balsa struts and some thin fabric? Or a wing just made out of a sheet of foam? Both are common on cheap drones.

Sure the 20mm round represents an amazing amount of kinetic energy, but the drone doesn't offer any resistance, and I wouldn't expect the round to even notice. Sure the disturbance in the air might throw the drone for a few loops, but any decent software will recover.

Sure hitting more substantial targets the target itself becomes of the shrapnel that causes an ever increasing zone of damage. Not clear to me that a piece of paper or thin fabric would exhibit the same behavior.

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

#80

Post by petre »

trhway wrote: post #76
hungryforcodes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against. The fact is the "killer bot" scenario is just a one time thing. After it happens, all cities or armies or whatever, will have very solid defences installed against swarming or even just loitering bots. Flying drones are incredibly fragile and exposed. They are slow and easy to kill.

>Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against. no. Azerbajan/Turkey went into it only after verifying that it works, to the devastating effect, against the Russian made air-defenses in Syria and Libya. Now Ukraine has bought these drones and is starting their production. In the next year or two we'll see them being used to the same great effect in Donbass. So fa…

Rafael Systems sells Drone Dome anti drone mobile defense.
Post reply on HN