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How Ukraine’s killer drones are beating Russian jamming

spectrum.ieee.org

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

#191

Post by pjc50 »

ct0 wrote: post #189
hofrogs wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stores won't sell a SIM card without the buyer providing valid state ID, and SIM cards are disabled by carriers if they suspect you are using someone else's card and you can't provide an ID for it. This is one of the recent laws. Getting a phone number/data plan that isn't associated with your real identity (and instead registered to someone else, usually a homeless guy somewhere) isn't impossible, but those wouldn't…

I wonder if identity documents were taken from POW's captured at the front lines.

Or just their civilian phones. Suddenly occurs to me how effective that would be as a source of SIMs. Won't last forever but can be produced in the month preceding the op.

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

#192

Post by pjc50 »

sreekanth850 wrote: post #185
pjc50 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm_Automatic_Gun_L/7... Immediate post-WW2 vintage. The classic design of AA gun. As far as I understand it from talking about Turkish drones, you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_TB2 style, aircraft size drones, rather than the quadcopter size ones? The latter can more easily hide in terrain.

Asisguard Songar drones.

Ah, thanks for the detail.

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

#193

Post by xeromal »

wood_spirit wrote: post #173
tgv wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If middle powers like Ukraine can do that to Russia, they can do that to countries like the US Ukraine borders on Russia, but the US is separated by ocean from serious threats. Attack by UAVs of this sort seems nearly impossible.

How does the ocean protect America from swarms of short range drones being launched from normal looking shipping containers on trucks being controlled from thousands of miles away?

The first volley would work of course but then container ships are gonna be nuked from orbit after that

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

#194

Post by ZhiqiangWang »

Ciantic wrote: post #19

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/ukra…

Andrew Tridgell, from rsync/samba to drone ....

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

#195

Post by tguvot »

glitchc wrote: post #136
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.

Lasers aren't effective. Most of the drone is just an empty frame. The control board is pretty tiny, as is the ordnance. Targeting those or the propulsion systems is quite difficult. Sure, you can punch holes in the chassis but it takes a lot of guesswork to hit something vital. It's the wrong weapon. Something with an area of effect, like a shotgun or a net is much better suited to stopping drones.

Israel published last week that it (trialed) deployed laser system to shoot down drones year ago at North. It had 40 intercepts or so. Full operational deployment scheduled for the end of this year

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

#196

Post by dmkolobov »

RenThraysk wrote: post #176
dmkolobov wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you’re probably just gonna reply with “still only need one camera” …but if GPS is jammed, and there’s only one camera per fleet, how exactly are the other drones supposed to navigate towards the spotted targets unless they’re all equipped with cameras?

One camera drone can see if another drone is on target.

So the old “use a single unreliable 2D instrument to coordinate multiple fast-moving projectiles in three dimensional space” approach.

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

#197

Post by orbital-decay »

falcor84 wrote: post #139
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, though (so far) range, velocity, and payload are far smaller than what we expect for a "cruise missile".

Well, this week proves that range and velocity limitation can be overcome if you ship them near to their destination in small boxes ahead of time. This wasn't really an option with cruise missiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalibr_(missile_family)#Club-K

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

#198

Post by twothreeone »

giantrobot wrote: post #109
twothreeone wrote: post #87

Assuming they were remotely operated - at least partially during the final few minutes of the attack - I wonder if the pilots remained in Ukraine or were hidden somewhere close by. I'm assuming they remained in Ukraine, thousands of kilometers away. If so, how did they pull off the remote connection over enemy territory? The only option somewhere as remote as Irkutsk seems to be Starlink, unless the trucks carried cu…

Over cellular modems in the drones with Russian SIM cards. The operation was prepared for months in advance. Getting a bunch of pre-paid SIM cards from the Russian equivalent to 7-11 (which might just be 7-11) was probably the easiest part of the operation.

Isn't GSM super easy to jam? Also, there's civilian cellular coverage in Siberia? And right next to military bases?? Wow..

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

#199

Post by tguvot »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #6
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.

There's a few, but they're large, expensive, require a lot of electricity and have limited range; there's the Silent Hunter [0] which is 30-100 kilowatts max power but which has a range of up to 4 kilometers. Raytheon has a 10 kilowatt palletized version that can go on a truck bed [1]; I can't find any numbers but it's listed as short-range, so I presume it's only effective at distances of less than 1 km, probably on…

Israel published last week that it made a trial run of the iron beam (10km range or so) during conflict with hezbollai. It had 40 intercepts and full operational deployment is scheduled for this year

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

#200

Post by pests »

sfn42 wrote: post #149
lawlessone wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s not an easy decision but I’d rather a machine made it than a stressed person! A machine also can't be held responsible. Who do the surviving relatives of the crush pedestrian sue? No longer the driver i guess

The thing that gets me about this autonomous car thing is that it shouldn't really happen. When a car has to swerve to avoid an accident it is typically because the driver was speeding and/or not paying attention. Autonomous cars wouldn't speed and they are always paying attention. Maybe you could argue that it happened because the other driver was drunk or for some other reason swerved into your lane but this is sti…

I’ve read that self driving cars almost always try to slow down /brake opposed to swerving for the simple reason of removing energy from any potential collision.

There was an article here serveral weeks ago about how in some self driving cars the brakes can be pre-loaded and can be used much quicker than a human could, reaction times aside.

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