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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

#81

Post by sliken »

mlyle wrote: post #74
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.

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.

From the phalanx wiki:

Whereas naval Phalanx systems fire tungsten armor-piercing rounds, the C-RAM uses the 20–mm HEIT-SD (High-Explosive Incendiary Tracer, Self-Destruct) ammunition, originally developed for the M163 Vulcan Air Defense System.[26][34] These rounds explode on impact with the target, or on tracer burnout, thereby greatly reducing the risk of collateral damage from rounds that fail to hit their target.

Not that the risk is zero, but at least it's "greatly reduced".

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

#82

Post by kova12 »

K0balt wrote: post #64
AlexCoventry wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it to shield electronics from a microwave blast? What impact would surrounding them in alfoil have?

Pretty easy to protect electronics from rf energy.

Shielding might end up warming up and frying device with heat

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

#83

Post by ericd »

mLuby wrote: post #58
Animats wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> But all those shells that don't hit the target land someplace. Just don't miss! It's only a few hundred meters out. Oh CWIS are only ship-mounted? I thought it was a general term. I like PDC better anyway. #TheExpanse Nice video—are those all tracers though?

> Nice video—are those all tracers though?

Well, it's video game footage (ARMA 3, according to the title).

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

#84

Post by mlyle »

sliken wrote: post #79
mlyle wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 softw…

Speaking as someone who's built and destroyed lots of homebuilt aircraft, and shot lots of things with guns of various sizes...

1. I think you're conflating "cheap agile drone" with "foam or balsa+durakote fixed wing aircraft".

2. Probable engagement aspect for a drone is not "straight up", as would be necessary for your scenario.

3. A little itty bitty hole in a wing does a whole lot more than you'd think.

4. Expecting a high velocity cannon round to just punch a clean hole in the wing is a little much.

Foam's a bit more robust, but a small pebble at a few miles per hour has wrecked my whole durakote day before.

And yes, there's degenerate cases, like you could have a whole sheet of dollar tree foam board maybe take a hit or two.

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

#85

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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.

..or the general public? Imagine a web site where you give your credit card and name a victim.

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

#86

Post by hnuser123456 »

sliken wrote: post #60
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.

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.

Here's a line of cops shooting at race drones. They would've had plenty of time to escape if they weren't sticking around to find out how long it takes to get shot down. These were race drones from 5 years ago and modern ones can be around twice as fast. Not to mention you don't want to dump a magazine upwards in your own territory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq0oCM37oZA

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

#87

Post by snovv_crash »

K0balt wrote: post #64
AlexCoventry wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it to shield electronics from a microwave blast? What impact would surrounding them in alfoil have?

Pretty easy to protect electronics from rf energy.

Not if it also needs to have an antenna to listen with. That's always going to be an easy way in.

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

#88

Post by capeterson »

jessaustin wrote: post #8
robotnikman wrote: post #2

I can already imagine ships being outfitted with hundreds of anti aircraft autocannons just for shooting down drone swarms, kind of like the USN ships of WWII. An old solution for a new problem

Could someone get something like that for her house? Asking for a friend...

If you've got the budget for it, the company I work for may be of use: https://www.whitefoxdefense.com/

I'm not sure if I would recommend jammers or kinetic weapons, haha.

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

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

The primary defense for the time being is 'hide.' US Marine tacticians, for example, are shifting priority from hardening an impromptu position (ie a foxhole) to concealing it.

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

#90

Post by capeterson »

korse wrote: post #18
jessaustin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could someone get something like that for her house? Asking for a friend...

If you really wanted to, I'd recommend a microwave 'cannon'. You can build one yourself for cheap-ish based off a directional antenna and some recycled microwave-link components. Then you just need to target it. Probably need some sort of weather proof retractable cover so that the neighbors don't freak out. Gimbal under the cover to aim the thing, and then a means of target acquisition. People have tried to use audi…

> audible input to pick up the propellers

Does not really work that well, as far as I've seen. One is probably best off using an SDR to pick up the communications between the drone and the remote. It's a rather inexpensive solution, as well.

Microdoppler is promising for this as well, but that is likely astronomically out of the range of purchasing power for the average person.

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