• LaFinlandia@sopuli.xyzOP
      281·
      7 months ago

      There’s been a huge increase in the usage of fiber optic drones by Ukranian forces in that area.

        • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          52·
          7 months ago

          Drone usage has played a big role in the war. Early on they were just dropping explosives on live troops and later started doing kamikaze runs where the drone would detonate on impact. Now drones can even drop anti tank explosives.

          As drone usage has increased, this opened the opportunity for units to start deploying signal jamming setups-- such as an infantry unit with a huge array of antennas set up to jam any wireless device within a certain radius. Since drones were operated wirelessly this meant the drones just crashed.

          To combat this, both sides have started using fiber optic connections to control the drones. The drones have a spool underneath them with the fiber optic cable and i have seen some advertise a range as far as 40km so far. This means the drones no longer can be jammed like before.

          Recently Ukraine announced they have a laser that they can use to shoot down drones as another advancement in the technology.

          And all of this IMO is why the war in Ukraine has been allowed to continue. It’s live weapon/ technology testing for modern warfare

            • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              9·
              7 months ago

              Yes, i agree. I meant other countries haven’t given ukraine as much aid as they could, or pressured Russia directly enough to end the war. Other countries are benefiting from the technology advancements being made in Ukraine so they have an interest in giving the minimal help needed to keep the war going.

          • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
            1·
            7 months ago

            And all of this IMO is why the war in Ukraine has been allowed to continue. It’s live weapon/ technology testing for modern warfare

            I think innovation like this, that is so cheap and accessible, is terrible for the super powers. I’m imagining if this type of thing was available in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, the US would have had a MUCH worse time.

            I would think it would be in the best interests of any first world country with a tendency toward… wars away from home… to limit the advancement of technology like this.

            • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              7 months ago

              I think innovation like this, that is so cheap and accessible, is terrible for the super powers. I’m imagining if this type of thing was available in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, the US would have had a MUCH worse time.

              Yup, on both points. That said, we’ve only seen what disorganized and underfunded groups struggling to survive could do with the tech in Ukraine. Imagine what a superpower could bring to mass production, long range delivery and mass coordination coupled to a first class military - china or the us. And it’s going to be peer adversarial - drones sometimes take out other drones in Ukraine, in the next major conflict we’re going to see swarm vs swarm actions.

              shit’s gonna get crazy fast

        • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world
          22·
          7 months ago

          You can’t jam the signal when it’s directly connected. Think ethernet cable to wifi. The war heavily uses drones. It’s been a cat and mouse game that Ukraine has been winning and this is the latest innovation.

        • Hugin@lemmy.world
          12·
          7 months ago

          Using wireless to control the drone makes the drone and operator very easy to detect. Controlling via fiber it’s mush harder to detect.

        • aramis87@fedia.io
          72·
          7 months ago

          tl;dr: drones can be tethered by fiber optic cables. The cable provides jam-proof communication between the drone and the operator; and it also supplies power to the drone so it doesn’t need a massive battery pack and can stay airborne longer.

          • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
            17·
            7 months ago

            Fiber optic cable can’t supply power.

            They could if it was a copper wire, but then it’s even heavier.

            • aramis87@fedia.io
              33·
              7 months ago

              According to the article:

              In the case of drones, the fiber optic cable provides a direct, stable, and high-capacity link for both power and data transmission. […] The fiber optic cable also supplies power to the drone, meaning the UAV doesn’t need a huge battery onboard.

      • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
        8·
        7 months ago

        Ukraine has had a lot of success using remotely operated suicide drones. They are cheap, built mostly from off the shelf hobbyist grade components, but with a few inexpensive upgrades the signal goes for miles. Strap a grenade on the bottom or any kind of bomb with an impact fuse and you have an excellent remote control weapon.

        So of course the Russians start deploying radio jammers to block the drone signals.

        The solution to this is fiber optics. The drone carries a giant spool of hair thin fiber optic cable which sends control commands from the operator and video back from the drone. Because it’s a cable, it’s immune to jamming.

        The cable is insanely thin, usually in the tens of microns thickness. So they don’t bother recovering the cable, drone flies out spooling out cable behind it, hits its target and blows up, operator just detaches that fiber and pulls out another drone with another spool of cable to start again. This leaves tons of little fibers laying around on the countryside because every drone leaves one in its path.

        That’s the point of this video. Most of those fibers have a dead Russian soldier at the end of them.