Russerne har være smarte nok til at lave droner, der ikke styres med radiosignaler, som kan jammes, men med et laaangt optisk kabel
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As the drone whirrs into the sky, something unusual trails behind it: a fibre optic cable barely visible to the naked eye.
The other end of the cable is attached to a pilot using a remote control unit to guide the first-person view machine toward its target: a Ukrainian armoured vehicle on the roadside.
Such fibre optic drones are the latest example of low-tech solutions being used to combat hi-tech electronic warfare (EW) on the battlefield.
Hundreds of miles of the front lines in Ukraine are covered by invisible, but almost impenetrable, shields of electronic pulses that knock drones out of the sky.
[ TrumfEs: her er en video, jeg ikke kan embedde ]
Last year, Gen Pierre Schill, the French army’s chief of staff, said at an event in Paris that 75 per cent of Russian and Ukrainian drones were being knocked out by jamming.
This is why unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) manufacturers on both sides have reverted back to a rather rudimentary tactic reminiscent of a toy telephone made from two tins tied together with a piece of string.
Manufacturers have taken to attaching spools of fibre optic cabling to the undercarriage of what have been described as “unjammable” drones so soldiers on the ground can maintain their battlefield-defining drone strike capabilities.
Kyiv had hoped this feat would have been achieved through the use of artificial intelligence capable of taking over from a human pilot to strike a target.
But with the clock ticking for both sides in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the warring forces have had to take a simpler step to keep their drones flying and effective.
Justin Crump, the chief executive of the strategic intelligence company Sibylline, said: “Fibre optic drones were developed by Russia to counter the problems of effective EW.
“People think of a drone at the end of a tether pulling off a big spool of wire, but the cable is so lightweight that the drone carries it and lays it behind it, meaning it doesn’t get snagged or caught or provide resistance to travel.”
The presence of a physical cable between the drone and its pilot means that the EW jammers are unable to scramble the usual radio frequencies used to guide it.
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Artiklen undlader at fortælle om hvordan de bliver brugt. Normale FPV (First Person View) droner lader man flyve rundt i et område, hvor de så skal finde et mål de kan gå efter. Når de er ved at løbe tør for strøm, bliver de beordret til at returnere til operatøren, der så kan udskifte batteriet.
Dette er i midlertidig ikke muligt med kablede FPV droner, da kablet vil forhindre dem i at returnere, eftersom det nemt vikler sig ind i diverse genstande på jorden, som bygninger og træer. Derfor lader man dem sidde i venteposition på steder, hvor man forventer der komme køretøjer. Typisk sidder de oven på en bygning med oversigt over en vejstrækning og/eller et kryds. Herved undgår man at de bruger strøm til at holde sig flyvende og de kan derfor vente i langt længere tid.
Man har så andre FPV droner til at overvåge området, så operatøren af den kablede FPV drone kan vække den til live og foretage angrebet, uden at skulle dræne dronens batteri, til at benytte dets kamera, mens den er i venteposition.
Det har i øvrigt været ret almindelig brugt at kampkøretøjer har små missiler med optisk kabel, til forsvar mod andre kampkøretøjer, så det er derfor en ret gammel teknologi der bliver anvendt. Disse våben har i øvrigt også været anvendt i Ukraine.