In the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, innovation in drone and counter-drone generation has a defining characteristic of the battlefield. Since many anti-drone systems work by jamming the radio signals that control drones, Russia and Ukraine are increasingly employing “anti-jamming” drones that communicate via lightweight fiber optic cables. The lightweight cable is wound onto a reel attached to the drone. It deploys as the drone flies, allowing the drone operator to maintain a communications connection even in the presence of interference. Still, in the cat-and-mouse game of drone and counter-drone generation, even those drones have inherent vulnerabilities that either country will soon exploit.
The challenge of countering such tethered drones goes beyond their immunity to jamming. Since jamming is ineffective, Ukrainian and Russian forces will have to resort to kinetic strategies to counter it. However, many kinetic counter-drone systems rely on the drone’s radio signal, including video transmission, for detection. This signal is then triangulated with the exact position of the drone. With fiber optic drones, those signals are transmitted to the operator through a cable, leaving no detectable signal.
Although these fiber optic controlled drones cannot be detected using their radio signature, there are other strategies to do so. A recent article in Business Insider reported that Kara Dag, a Ukrainian technology company, had proposed acoustic and visual signatures, combined with complex processing techniques, to stumble upon those captive drones. Once tripped, the Ukrainians can counter the drone using a series of kinetic strategies. Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Radio Electronics Industry is seeking data from the defense network on how to trip and potentially defeat those drones. Many of their proposals also focus on the acoustic and visual stumble of these drones.
Drone acoustic detection is a well-established strategy that relies on an array of microphones to identify the unique noise produced by drone blades and propeller motors. Fiber optic drones are noisier than similar offline drones because their propellers will have to generate more thrust for the additional payload of the cable reel. Still, historically the biggest challenge with this technique has been range. Noise levels attenuate with distance and most microphones have difficulty distinguishing drone noise from ambient sounds at distances greater than a hundred meters or so. To address this limitation, directional microphone arrays are commonly used. These networks concentrate on specific portions of the sky, particularly reducing interference from ambient noise. By scanning the sky, they can increase the probability of detecting the acoustic presence of a drone.
The visual problem of drones is also well established, but also presents its own challenges. Small drones look like tiny dots in the sky, making them difficult to distinguish from planes or birds. Additionally, tethered drones typically fly closer to the ground, which restricts the line of sight needed for visual stumbling. However, several proposed techniques use fiber optic cable to facilitate onion tripping. Although the cable is thin and difficult to see in the visual spectrum, it reflects light in the infrared range. A drone onion detection formula can exploit these advantages by using a diffuse infrared laser to scan the sky and an infrared camera to detect cable reflections. Infrared cameras could also detect the heat signature of the drone’s motors as they heat up during operation.
Both acoustic and visual detection strategies will have to identify very small signals within a giant amount of noise, the proverbial needle in a haystack. Advances in processing techniques, coupled with device learning and synthetic intelligence, have the potential to facilitate this task. Additionally, when the two detection techniques are combined, they overlap each other, expanding the probability of detecting a drone. Kara Dag is devising such a formula for Ukraine, drawing on the country’s strong technical expertise in complex processing techniques.
Despite these potential methods for countering fiber-optic-controlled drones, such systems are not currently available. As a result, whichever side develops a counter-drone solution first will gain a distinct advantage on the battlefield. While Russia possesses expertise in drone technology, Ukraine has the ability to rapidly innovate and field new solutions. Once one side implements a solution, the other is likely to quickly follow with its own, and drone warfare will continue to evolve.
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