Hacker News Reader

Comment by tstrimple | Hacker News Reader

TIL most of the drones used in Ukraine aren’t wireless. They unspool an extremely thin fiber optic filament. There is a video of some soldiers walking through a field and it looks like he’s collecting thick spider webs as he goes.

View on HN

Most drones are wireless, the vast majority in fact, but there are drones that use fiber optic but of course they are much more expensive and they have to carry a large spool of fiber optic, the spool must be on the drone so it wouldn't tangled.

Drones connected to their controller with a bunch of dangling cables sounds completely mental.

The aftermath certainly looks crazy. One of the comments talked about seeing an older video of a drone following a line of cables back to an operator.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1kwsum...

Yes, I was wrong about it being most. But it is a growing segment.

AFAIK fiber drones are specifically short range, couple of miles only. The spool size itself is the limiting factor

Up to 30km now. Though I was wrong about it being most, it is a growing number.

https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/new_domestic_30_km...

I believe its designed for bigger drones, where power supply would be the primary concern

The fiber optic doesn't carry power. Just the video and control signals.

What's the purpose of using the fiber? To avoid radio signals?

Electronic warfare is pretty effective against drones that are using radio waves for their communication. Earlier in the war you could see a lot of drone footage that would become washed out with static as they got closer to tanks so it's much more reliable to use spools of fiber.

To counter jamming and GPS spoofing. https://spectrum.ieee.org/killer-drones

The RF communications they use are not robust in so-called denied environments, so it is relatively easy to severe the link with EW even if it is not that sophisticated. The use of fiber is a workaround that gives the drone a reliable control link. It does not protect the drone against direct EW (e.g. attacks against the onboard systems).

Robust RF communication for denied environments is tech that exists, it just doesn’t seem to be present on the Ukraine/Russia battlefield. This is likely because so much of the drone tech is derived from consumer platforms and both sides have limited access to sophisticated military-grade RF silicon.

To counter EW measures and also in challenging radio environment. Like to fly into hangar with stored tanks 20+km from the frontline. Or into the canyon, places with so called radio shadow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com