It's raining drones, hallelujah !
Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
111–120 of 131 posts
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
What defence could, say, a traditional military base, mount against a swarm of, say, 1000 of these?
One would probably use a laser, https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/rheinmetall_ag/press/themen_i... As they are small, they do not need a lot of energy to be disabled, especially if they are jammed first.
The laser has to disable the drone in seconds, though. Wouldn't a laser with sufficient power to do so cause collateral vision damage from the diffused reflection? Think of a drone flying low and fast into a political rally with a crowd. You don't know the intentions of the pilot so it must be disabled immediately. Many people will look up at the source of noise and thus be exposed. I wonder if e.g. a birdshot cannon would actually be safer.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#113For those who like drone dystopia nightmare fuel, this video made me think of this disturbing modern weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM_Kargu :/
What defence could, say, a traditional military base, mount against a swarm of, say, 1000 of these?
I think we’re going to see the return of shotguns as a normal weapon issued to foot soldiers. Not useful against a thousand of these, but some birdshot will be a pretty good defense against lone ones used for observation.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#114For those who like drone dystopia nightmare fuel, this video made me think of this disturbing modern weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM_Kargu :/
What defence could, say, a traditional military base, mount against a swarm of, say, 1000 of these?
Police are beginning to use special shotgun shells that fire what are essentially nets that tangle up drone props and make them fall out of the sky.
I could see larger, military versions of this being effective. Drones are pretty fragile and easy to take down.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#115For those who like drone dystopia nightmare fuel, this video made me think of this disturbing modern weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM_Kargu :/
What defence could, say, a traditional military base, mount against a swarm of, say, 1000 of these?
Air superiority automated "hunter" drones.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
One would probably use a laser, https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/rheinmetall_ag/press/themen_i... As they are small, they do not need a lot of energy to be disabled, especially if they are jammed first.
The laser has to disable the drone in seconds, though. Wouldn't a laser with sufficient power to do so cause collateral vision damage from the diffused reflection? Think of a drone flying low and fast into a political rally with a crowd. You don't know the intentions of the pilot so it must be disabled immediately. Many people will look up at the source of noise and thus be exposed. I wonder if e.g. a birdshot cannon…
Your own troops would be issued PPE — in this case, laser protective eyewear.
This is already a thing due to the widespread use of laser rangefinders, designators, and the like, as well as the fact that the Chinese have fielded blinding laser weapons.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The laser has to disable the drone in seconds, though. Wouldn't a laser with sufficient power to do so cause collateral vision damage from the diffused reflection? Think of a drone flying low and fast into a political rally with a crowd. You don't know the intentions of the pilot so it must be disabled immediately. Many people will look up at the source of noise and thus be exposed. I wonder if e.g. a birdshot cannon…
Your own troops would be issued PPE — in this case, laser protective eyewear. This is already a thing due to the widespread use of laser rangefinders, designators, and the like, as well as the fact that the Chinese have fielded blinding laser weapons.
Not thinking troops so much as civilian use/defense, hence the political rally example.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> surely it would be driven by battery voltage measurements No, it's driven by a battery management system that measures battery voltage, temperature and input/output current in order to get a more accurate estimate.
Yeah, I didn’t mean to convey that battery voltage measurements would be the only factor, but I didn’t end up actually expressing that. Thanks for the clarification. Certainly the concept still applies: it’s driven by physical factors, not just time.
Oh sorry I totally misread your comment; thought you said the opposite!
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know several people who've contributed to Ardupilot who are 100% "hobby guys". I've modified Ardupilot (and BetaFlight and iNav) for my own hobby use (but nothing really worth or in a state to contribute back). While it's true drone technology "could be used for harmful applications", that's also true for, say, compilers. Do you hold the gcc/clang developers to account for being "blind to the military applications…
I don't mind the profile stalking, but if you stalked me more you'd have seen that I'm a former weapons engineer for the Dutch navy, so making things with potential military applications does not bother me as much as you might think. (Ironically, that arduino CoPilot library is based on software specifically designed for drone applications, so does that count as military software redirected towards civilian applicati…
Yeah, I guess I was reacting (badly) to "to be simultaneously ignorant enough not to realize that a drone could be used for harmful applications".
I, personally, don't ever want to let that argument stop me from building shit that I want to build for fun. Like I pointed out, Hiluxes and F-19Ws have become well know "tools of trade" for freedom fighters and terrorists. Obviously totally not the intend ofd the designers, and even in retrospect nobody sane would say "Toyota should never have built and sold the HiLux because it's too easy to mount a machine gun in the tray!"
Could my ongoing projects to build sub 100g autonomous drones be misused by people to do harm? Maybe? Could my experimenting with LoRa Mesh Networking be misused by people to do harm? Maybe? Could my project to try using GPS and ADSB to aim a camera with a high powered zoom lens on a gimbal to take pics of planes be misused by people to do harm? Maybe? Am I going to stop doing any of those things because of that? Nope. On the other hand, would I experiment with a drone carrying explosives? Nope. Would I mount a laser on the camera gimbal auto aiming at planes? Nope. I don't know if my personal lines in the sand have any valid arguments behind them other than "that's just where my personal morals/ethics draws the line", and I wouldn't hold other people to account for having their own lines drawn somewhat differently. But I will judge both far ends of the bell curve there as "way too irresponsible" or "way too paranoid".
Having said that, two companies in another comment of mine here DroneSheild and EOS have both tried to headhunt me (DroneShield directly, EOS I'm 98% certain it was them the recruiter was trying to pimp me to..) And both times I was _seriously_ tempted just because the technical challeneges seem like so much fun. I declined both approaches though, having decided I didn't want to work in that industry. My dad was a defence contractor pretty much his entire career, so I don't judge people who _do_ choose that industry. It can certainly be lucrative, and _most_ of what dad worked on at least was defence or training, rather than attack weapons.
Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
In China, both are equally probable.
Okay I don't care if my account gets banned but why in the FUCK does everything about China has to do with the government? Everyone here and on Reddit are bitching about Chinese propaganda bots but the only thing I see is people with new accounts attacking China and an immediate accusation of shilling to anyone who doesn't criticize China or even draws a parallel between whatever is being criticized and the U.S.. Ser…
Btw, all comments here explaining rationally why immediate hate on China does not belong in a lot of places, but shows up anyway, are being flagged.
So you can actually tell how well the propaganda has worked on a lot of people. They just love the outrage so much that they'll censor anyone who questions them.
The brainwashing has been complete. Poor US citizens.