Drone Interceptor with a Net Gun | Hacker News Reader

Drone Interceptor with a Net Gun

lamat.me

Note that this is similar to the (patented) drone net system from HIRo lab. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvdKNBSWPyU

It can carry the drone, but it doesn't seem to be able to move as fast. I wonder if it can really catch a drone trying to evade it.

TIL a gun that shoots a net is patent-able.

This is such an obvious thing that I don't see how they argued it was worthy of a patent.

A larger version of these should be developed to take down the Orlan 10 Russian drones. Interestingly enough, the creator of this interceptor drone was born in Kiev.

At this point you're just thinking of a crappier, more expensive, electric MANPAD. It would not be trivial to make one of these that can climb to 1km and acquire a target 2-3km away at over 200km/h.

You'd be better off with a solid propellant, saclos guidance, and a fragmentation warhead.

Wouldn't even need propellant for these, Rheinmetall has some ammo they program as it's leaving the barrel to fragment just a couple metres before the target

Yes, the issue is guidance though, bullets that can maneuver are extremely expensive also.

After viewing the Optical Remote Control video (the last on the page), I wonder if they only use artificial turds for training purposes, but drop live turds on actual Russian jammers?

Is this the beginning of Drone-Piracy Age? Will people pay ransom for their drones and packages? Will England, Spain and Holland send their navies to rescue them?

The end of the "Drone courier" video includes a trailer for Johnny Mnemonic, a cyberpunk film from 1981. Seems interesting.

Probably because it's intended for use as a "data courier" like Johnny Mnemonic himself, hence the "MNEMONIC" on the wings. And the movie is from 1995; the story is from 1981.

I find it interesting how we're coming up on actual 2025, and if he wanted to smuggle 320 GiB of information with his body, Johnny needn't risk his life or his childhood memories; he could simply swallow a condom with an SD card in it. I still want a SinoLogic 16 with a GPL stealth module, Sogo-7 data gloves, a Burdine intelligent translator and Thomson eyephones, though.

> I find it interesting how we're coming up on actual 2025

The story seems set in 2021, so we've already passed it.

I always interpreted the data storage (and, particularly, retrieval) aspect as more of a metaphor for man's search for meaning. Or something.

I think it's from 90's because there's young but not too young Keanu Reeves in it. Now I need to watch it because I have a thing for movies filmed in 90's and early 2000's.

Right on, the original story it's based on, by William Gibson, was published in 1981 but the movie is from the 90's. I think that movie is tragically underrated but it does have a bit of a cult following now at least.

Can the creator of these supply to Ukraine? They are using anti aircraft weapons to take down drones. the anti aircraft weapons obviously better saved for aircraft.

https://ukrspecsystems.com/ these guys are a Ukrainian based drone maker, with contact info on the page. I'm sure they would be able to get these anti drone drones onto the battlefield. Could help Ukraine win the war.

The UAVs that Ukraine is targeting with anti-aircraft weapons aren't the kind that can be disabled with a net launched from a racing drone. They're large military aircraft.

Yes. I don't know the size of Russian drones but the infamous U.S. MQ-1 Predator drone is about the size of a Learjet, for example.

A predator is more in the Cessna/ultralight territory. A reaper though is in the Learjet range.

But yes Russian military drones are in the same niche as American military drones.

The problem with the word "Drone" is that it's been used to mean everything, from the $5 toy that hovers above your hand, the $3000 VR Headset racing models, the military versions of the same that serve as recon tools, the modern man-portable-anti-tank weapons like the Switchblade [1] , to full-sized ground attack airplane replacements like the Predator. It's insane that they've all been lumped under a single label.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

Good correction, you're right. The Predator has significantly more wingspan than a Cessna but is about the same length, and actually weighs less. https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/article/1044...

Drones are aircraft.

They are aircraft that is cheaper than anti-aircraft rockets normally used. One shot from anti-aircraft system cost 50-200k depending. This is great when the target costs 50 million, but drones costs start from 1k.

If the target is trying to kill you, this calculus is less relevant.

You're right, but it can become significant, actually. And the target needn't try to kill you directly, it's enough that it can relay your position to a competent artillery unit.

The Israeli Iron Dome is intercepting unguided ("dumb") rockets and shells that cost $500-$1500 each using missiles that cost ~$100k or more each. Had Hamas decided to launch 100 per day for a month it would exhaust the capacity fairly quickly. Ofc this kind of an action would reignite the war, but points at the problem with air defense systems.

In fact I don't think there's a practical solution against an enemy that has cheap, non jammable drones with a very high density, like 1 per soldier or more. There's just no way to counter that, and cheap military drones start at $5k-$10k, so it is feasible to achieve this level of density.

It seems the practical solution that both Isreal and ukraine have thankfully found themselves with is to get someone else to foot the bill. That might not even be an unusual solution in a world of proxy wars

A production version of "drone killers": https://www.anduril.com/hardware/anvil/

This one's autonomous and rams the target instead of catching it with a net.

Electronic warfare is an issue for off the shelf things, but looking at Russian track record, it could have a decent chance of at least giving it a shot

The same author has a prototype for a jamming resistant IR based control system.

Looks like they use the net to disrupt the rotors. But what if the rotor blades of the attacked drone are shielded?

I imagine you could make a net who's mesh is made up of a light garland like cord with long fringes that get sucked into protective mesh and tangles the rotor.

Needs an autopilot feature so it can track and intercept the target once it is acquired.

Aside from that, VERY COOL!

Could this be used in the future to steal Amazon drone deliveries?

Anyone got an idea why in the simulation they targeted a bird?

they showed an example of identifying the target, and in this case the identification indicated they have the wrong target so the attack was aborted

Cause birds aren't real.

Maybe they used the targeting system from a cat drone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW0hyg4kfaw

I assume it was off the shelf drone training software that already had birds in it.

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