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How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

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Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#11

Post by mattashii »

fredthestair wrote: post #4
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking the same thing. You don't even need to fully destroy the drone, if you manage to damage the camera sensors or the exposed lithium cell it's game over for the drone.

It's extremely easy to make surfaces partly reflective and extremely hard to make lasers outside of labs more powerful.

More powerful than what? If StyroPyro can build handheld 200W+ LED laser device in his workshop [0], why wouldn't a sufficiently funded military be able to build an anti-drone laser with the same (or higher) power output?

Note that his laser burns through various reflective materials, including mirrors, copper, aluminium, and steel.

[0] https://youtu.be/UBVlL0FNbSE

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#12

Post by Bender »

mbones wrote: post #5

[flagged]

It's a bit off topic but the answer would be Friend or Foe systems that are used today in aircraft to help the pilot know if there are friendlies, unknowns and known baddies on the ground. No idea if there are plans to implement this in drones as the systems would likely require retrofit and drones would need more battery draining gear. That gear would have to get a lot smaller.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#14

Post by jvanderbot »

Oarch wrote: post #2

Beyond jamming, I imagine some kind of autonomous laser system could also be pretty effective at downing large numbers of drones within a given radius.

Now imagine that but with a shotgun shooting bird/buck shot at decent ROF. Way better.

The problem with any point defense system is radiating any energy makes you a big target. So you would want a passive (EO/IR?) or triggered active/passive system.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#15

Post by flave »

I really don’t get all the fretting about drones making kill-no-kill decisions.

You’re telling me that you’d rather this was done by a stressed, emotional, tired front-line private?

Reminds me of the debate about a self driving car that might need to mount the curb to avoid hitting a car - and therefore endangering a pedestrian.

It’s not an easy decision but I’d rather a machine made it than a stressed person!

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#17

Post by pixl97 »

mattashii wrote: post #11
fredthestair wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely easy to make surfaces partly reflective and extremely hard to make lasers outside of labs more powerful.

More powerful than what? If StyroPyro can build handheld 200W+ LED laser device in his workshop [0], why wouldn't a sufficiently funded military be able to build an anti-drone laser with the same (or higher) power output? Note that his laser burns through various reflective materials, including mirrors, copper, aluminium, and steel. [0] https://youtu.be/UBVlL0FNbSE

Burning stuff at 20 feet is much easier than burning stuff at thousands of feet in distance.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#18

Post by jjice »

flave wrote: post #15

I really don’t get all the fretting about drones making kill-no-kill decisions. You’re telling me that you’d rather this was done by a stressed, emotional, tired front-line private? Reminds me of the debate about a self driving car that might need to mount the curb to avoid hitting a car - and therefore endangering a pedestrian. It’s not an easy decision but I’d rather a machine made it than a stressed person!

This issue is too complex for me to really have a good thought at the moment, but I will say that this reminds me of that classic story of the Soviet who didn't launch the nukes during a threat came in from the US.

The threat ended up being a false alarm, and that human judgement saved a lot of lives. A machine, assuming it would have launched when seeing that signal, would've ended differently.

Re: How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

#19

Post by Ciantic »

The latest attack deep inside Russian borders were apparently using ArduPilot [1], it is mentioned in the Atlantic article [2]. ArduPilot also has C++ source code in Github [3], also adding an article specifically about ArduPilot and Ukraine [4]

[1]: https://ardupilot.org/

[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/06/uk...

[3]: https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot

[4]: https://www.404media.co/ukraines-massive-drone-attack-was-po...

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