In a transfer that highlights the continued arms race in drone warfare, Russia’s Ministry of Business and Commerce has issued a Request for Data [RFI] to discover countermeasures in opposition to FPV [First-Person View] drones managed via optical cables.
As revealed in an announcement from the ministry’s press workplace earlier this December, the RFI was issued in October 2024, signaling the Russian authorities’s rising concentrate on securing its airspace from this rising menace.
The challenge, which remains to be below improvement, has been entrusted to the Ministry of Radioelectronic Business, which is able to lead efforts to guage potential technological options. This step underscores Russia’s consciousness of the rising tactical use of cable-guided drones and their capability to evade conventional jamming or GPS countermeasures.
Each Russia and Ukraine have more and more turned to fiber optic FPV [First-Person View] drones as a key element of their navy methods. These drones are geared up with a novel management system, the place they don’t seem to be powered by conventional wi-fi radio frequencies however moderately by a fiber optic cable that connects the drone to its operator.
This setup considerably will increase the vary and management stability of the drone, as it isn’t topic to the constraints of wi-fi communication, which will be disrupted or jammed. The fiber optic cable acts as a safe, high-bandwidth connection, transmitting each video feed and management indicators in real-time with out counting on standard radio indicators.
Essentially the most essential benefit of this technique is its capability to bypass typical anti-drone applied sciences, significantly jamming efforts. Conventional drones, which depend on GPS and RF indicators, can simply be disabled by digital warfare ways resembling jamming.
Nonetheless, fiber optic drones function independently of those indicators, rendering them practically immune to standard disruption strategies. The cable additionally offers the drone with a continuing energy provide, which means it may possibly fly longer distances while not having to fret about battery life.
This makes fiber optic FPV drones extremely efficient in conducting surveillance or finishing up precision strikes, as they’re much less susceptible to the same old countermeasures.
The problem of neutralizing these drones lies of their reliance on the fiber optic hyperlink, which is far tougher to sever than a wi-fi sign. In contrast to radio frequency indicators that may be jammed or blocked with relative ease, slicing or disrupting the bodily cable requires shut proximity or exact focusing on, which is much harder to attain within the chaos of battlefield operations.
Moreover, the fiber optic cable is usually well-protected and sometimes disguised to mix into the setting, making it even tougher for enemy forces to find and destroy it. As either side proceed to innovate in using these drones, their rising prevalence within the battle marks a big evolution in fashionable warfare ways.
The usage of fiber optic FPV drones first gained important consideration earlier this yr, primarily via Russian navy channels. Within the preliminary wave, ZALA, a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov group, made headlines by boasting about their new quadcopter, the “Product 55.”
The corporate heralded it as an answer immune to all types of radio jamming. At first, this appeared to level towards some type of autonomy, a path ZALA had explored prior to now with their earlier fashions.
Nonetheless, a captured Russian FPV kamikaze drone revealed a wholly sudden and progressive strategy to counteracting radio interference: it didn’t depend on radio indicators in any respect. As an alternative, it used an optical cable to speak instantly with the operator whereas in flight.
The optical cable, which was coiled and prolonged because the drone flew, provided a brand new methodology of sustaining connectivity that’s impervious to conventional jamming ways.
On March 2nd, Ukrainian navy blogger Serhii “Flash” reported on the invention of this uncommon Russian FPV drone. Along with its typical warhead, the drone was carrying a hole plastic egg-like object, which contained a chunk of unidentified tools.
Flash posed the query to his readers, asking if anybody might determine the unusual object. Just a few days later, he posted the reply. Ukrainian specialists had dismantled the drone and uncovered that the mysterious object was really a spool of optical fiber cable hooked up to a industrial optical transceiver, manufactured in China and designed for high-speed communications.
The markings on the spool indicated that it contained 10,813 meters [6.7 miles] of cable. This discovery revealed a wholly new functionality for drones in fight: long-range, safe, and interference-proof communication utilizing fiber optic expertise.
The usage of fiber optic FPV drones has posed a big problem for conventional countermeasures, as these drones function independently of radio frequencies, making them immune to standard digital warfare ways like jamming. This development calls for new approaches to neutralizing them.
From a navy tactical perspective, the important thing problem is to search out methods to bodily disrupt the communication channel [the optical cable] whereas making certain that the drones will be neutralized with out counting on conventional distant management.
So what would possibly Russian engineers give you to counter this new menace? One preliminary strategy might contain creating applied sciences that “impede” or sever the optical cable connecting the drone to its operator. Improvements in laser expertise is likely to be key on this regard.
Excessive-powered lasers could possibly be mounted on navy autos and even on fight drones to intrude with or reduce the optical sign, creating optical “jamming” that disrupts the communication. This might result in the lack of management of the drone whereas leaving the operator unable to regain the connection.
One other potential methodology might contain using sensor networks designed to detect and observe the trajectory of the drones via environmental adjustments or object motion evaluation. Such networks might embody acoustic sensors to detect the sound signatures of drone motors or infrared sensors to trace the warmth signatures of drone engines.
As soon as a drone is detected, it could possibly be neutralized utilizing bodily means, resembling laser weapons and even high-speed anti-aircraft missiles, designed to focus on small, fast-moving objects.
The potential for utilizing “sensible” networks to neutralize the bodily location of the optical cable shouldn’t be missed both. Ways that contain specialised forces or drones monitoring and destroying the optical cable itself might show efficient, particularly if mixed with reconnaissance capabilities to determine susceptible factors.
This might additionally embody using compact robotic gadgets that infiltrate the fight zone and bodily destroy the cable with out disrupting the operator’s core infrastructure.
Regardless of these potential approaches, the first problem in countering fiber optic FPV drones can be their mobility and their capability to operate at lengthy ranges with out counting on conventional radio indicators.
It will require navy forces to rethink the idea of “protected zones” in operational environments and put money into new applied sciences for monitoring and neutralizing drones that may function past the vary of standard countermeasures.
Finally, it could require a reevaluation of the idea of digital warfare itself. Because it’s not nearly disrupting radio indicators however bodily interfering with communication channels, future strategists might want to concentrate on multidisciplinary approaches combining sensors, lasers, and robotics in built-in techniques for defending airspace.
These ways will demand new paradigms of pondering and improvements that adapt to the ever-evolving nature of contemporary warfare.
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