This seems like an obvious solution to me so it's probably been discussed to death, but I can't see why infantry (ukraine/russia) doesn't use ground-based laser systems to blind these flying frickers and stop them from grenade-bombing infantry.
Why don't they just blind them with lasers?
here's your laser damage, does that stop you from doing the drops? lasers capable of melting the drone are too big and expensive
>here's your laser damage, does that stop you from doing the drops? lasers capable of melting the drone are too big and expensive
I know that (I work with such lasers), but you don't need to melt anything, or even damage anything, just temporarily blind so they can't see the infantry and can't navigate optically
>1. A laser that can damage optical equipment on a drone, to the point of "blinding" the drone can also be pointed at people, potentialy at eyes. This a problem because weapons explicitly designed to maim, cause severe and lasting injury, an opposing combatant, not outright be lethal in their own right, are warcrimes. Neither side particularly wants the optics of grunts, who don't know the rules of war very well, running around with warcrime tools.
Yeah I'm aware of the ban on blinding weapons but figured it might be ok if they're pointed upwards and used for defensive purposes against drones only. Could even integrate an IMU that prevents the laser from energizing if the device is tilted below 45deg or whatever.
>2. Hitting optics is hard on a small object either direct above you or 200 m away, that is moving around. effect will also not be instant, so good luck on the damage front
It's not that hard, especially consider the beam gets wider as you get further out. Can defocus/widen beam on purpose too.
>3. Spot the drone. Go on. Get a friend to fly a drone around in your local park or innawoods. You may be able to hear a drone but to see one and point a laser at it is quite hard. So you either need a thermal imager to spot them, because they will show up nicely on contrast , or small RADARs around to spot drones, which comes with a heap of problems around SIGINT and EW. This of course all adds cost as well
I have a solution for this. Active LIDAR-style scanning of the sky. Drone will reflect, sky will not.
Don't tell me it's not technically feasible, because I could build this in a few days.
Look, if you've thought about it, someone in a suit who gets paid 6 figures a year has probably thought of it too. And they've either realised its unworkable on a practical level or there is some other reason why its not feasible. If it is feasible, then they probably have another suit working on getting it designed, built and implemented
That's how I've thought about these things for most of my life, but in recent years I've realized that institutions are far more dysfunctional than people realize, there are far fewer competent people than people with competent-sounding titles, and there are actually not that many technical people working on these problems as people like you and I think.
Over and over in my life, I have a tech idea, set it aside (for reasons similar to what you just described), and then 4-6 years later I see a wave of startups doing what I wanted to do, and they started 1-2 years after I wanted to do it. Sometimes you're just early, especially when it involves technical expertise that you already have and thus you see the possibilities before most.
you are woefully ignorant of how little value an idea has in the launch of a product. some guy took more than a decade to perfect his stupid fricking vacuum cleaner from an idea to a viable product. the fact that you see others developing your ideas within a few years shows you how unoriginal your ideas were.
you're totally missing the point, dumbass. I'm not saying "woe is me they stole my idea" I'm saying I should have followed through on executing the idea rather than thinking "nah, the fact that nobody else has done this means it's a bad idea for a reason I just don't know about".
we talk about probably has been discussed better in a board room somewhere
Why are you on this board then? I don't get people like you.
>I could build this in a few days.
Then why are you here instead of building an actual prototype and doing testing with that instead of asking actual random non experts in any field at all what their opinion is on next level drone warfare.
But you can't build it and we all know it.
>Then why are you here instead of building an actual prototype and doing testing with that
Because it's still faster to post a thread here and get almost-instant feedback.
> instead of asking actual random non experts in any field at all what their opinion is on next level drone warfare.
I don't spend much time here but I thought this was were all the weapon/warfare nerds on PrepHole hung out
>But you can't build it and we all know it.
I have extensive experience with literally every component of such a system, and have built similar systems for different purposes. I'm not even sure which part you think is hard. It's just a camera+processor+steerable laser
which part do you think is so difficult that you insist I must be making things up?
>Active LIDAR-style scanning of the sky.
This is how you get murdered by artillery.
Jammers are the go-to anti-drone method right now and their utility is somewhat limited for the same reason. Anything on the ground that is screaming into the aether is going to be detected by EWAR equipment and targeted.
Rule #1 of the "infantry onion" is "Don't be seen."
That's precisely where this approach stands out - an RF jammer is broadcasting a high power signal and those waves can be detected far away. A laser system isn't trying to drown out an existing RF transmission, so it operates at lower power. It also attenuates quite rapidly in ordinary atmosphere.
To be clear, I'm not talking about just spamming the sky with a super powerful laser; I'm talking about a system that aims very precisely at one target.
Also (same poster) your idea isn't bad at it's core OP. I've heard other people suggest it before. The main problem in this war specifically is that the frontlines are a very dangerous place for anything emitting too much in the ways of electronic signals without making itself a target.
Another thing is that there's not much of a reason to try to blind drones when you could kill them instead. Systems like Phalanx CIWS can very easily target small incoming projectiles like mortar rounds or enemy drones and kill them, but because of the risk of being murdered by arty you don't see German Gepards (which the Ukrainians have) near the frontlines much.
Well, with LIDAR you need to be constantly scanning before you can target something, right? Unless you were just relying solely on the operator of the system to spot drones with their eyeballs before activating the system, that is.
If you've ever seen the drone drop videos the soldiers being targeted often have no idea that the drone is there until a grenade lands on them.
1. A laser that can damage optical equipment on a drone, to the point of "blinding" the drone can also be pointed at people, potentialy at eyes. This a problem because weapons explicitly designed to maim, cause severe and lasting injury, an opposing combatant, not outright be lethal in their own right, are warcrimes. Neither side particularly wants the optics of grunts, who don't know the rules of war very well, running around with warcrime tools.
2. Hitting optics is hard on a small object either direct above you or 200 m away, that is moving around. effect will also not be instant, so good luck on the damage front
3. Spot the drone. Go on. Get a friend to fly a drone around in your local park or innawoods. You may be able to hear a drone but to see one and point a laser at it is quite hard. So you either need a thermal imager to spot them, because they will show up nicely on contrast , or small RADARs around to spot drones, which comes with a heap of problems around SIGINT and EW. This of course all adds cost as well
>bullets, bombs and missiles that can render you limb from limb and cripple you for life?
>A-OK
>a regular-ass laser that takes several minutes of exposure to actually blind someone?
>NOOOOOOOOOO WAR CRIMINAL!!!
You're missing the point moron.
Much more difficult to blind a drone than a human. Cameras can stare into the sun without damage.
I'm slowly going blind due to 90% of motorists running ultra bright high beams 24/7.
>Much more difficult to blind a drone than a human. Cameras can stare into the sun without damage.
No, not really. A camera can indeed stare at a very bright light source and "cope" by reducing exposure & gain, but that will make everything except the light source extremely dark. The human eye has FAR more dynamic range than just about any camera, so it's actually more able to deal with high brightness + low brightness at the same time.
Anyway, bottom line is, no, cameras can't cope with lasers without effectively losing their ability to see anything else.
drones are hard to spot and require very good sensors to detect them and even if you do most computers are still too dumb to target drones without genociding the local bird population
>drones are hard to spot and require very good sensors to detect them
no they're not you just need to scan the sky with a laser and investigate mark reflections as target candidates for further processing (see below)
> and even if you do most computers are still too dumb to target drones without genociding the local bird population
you can use ordinary laser self-mixing & fourier transform the reflected light to detect/quantify frequencies typical of motorized propellers. drones are going to stick out like a sore thumb.
this can be done cheap, with a small portable device
ama
You should totally be building a prototype and present it to the DoD. I'm sure they would be very interested. Just make sure to name it something that we can know it's you. Like Sneed 3000.
>System for Neutralising Enemy Electric Drones
SNEED
Checked
Also, several SNEEDs are controlled by a central hub
>Counter-measure Hub for Unmanned 'Copter Killing
How much do you need for a dazzler prototype?
About $350 unironically
That doesn't even cover 1 dude's labor
I thought you meant the cost of the components.
The labor is a bit complicated because as I said I already have pretty much all of it done, it's just a question of whether it's worth doing tests for this purpose or if someone's already doing this at scale.
I am interested in low-cost tactical dazzlers. The powers that be are interested in well-known foreign names and local startups. So your best bets would be either coming to Ukraine to form a business (it's not difficult) and hiring on local (cheap) labor after some sales, or selling your product to an integrator like Ukrainian Armor.
>I am interested in low-cost tactical dazzlers. The powers that be are interested in well-known foreign names and local startups.
are you pic related?
> So your best bets would be either coming to Ukraine to form a business (it's not difficult) and hiring on local (cheap) labor after some sales, or selling your product to an integrator like Ukrainian Armor.
based on the functionality I've described, how much could I ask for/realistically expect per unit? $
every time I watch one of those drone grenade videos it's abundantly clear my device would prevent it
>are you pic related?
I am a western specialist who has the ear of those who make large-scale UAS/CUAS purchases in the slavlands. Understand that ukraine is a low-trust society, so the task of getting the value of promising products recognized often requires laundering through a non-ukrainian. Drop a line if you want.
>every time I watch one of those drone grenade videos it's abundantly clear my device would prevent it
Keep in mind that they always work in pairs or more.
>based on the functionality I've described, how much could I ask for/realistically expect per unit? $
Don't know yet. I'm well-versed in the ukrainian miltech ecosystem and the going rates for various things, but low-power dazzlers are a very new trend. You certainly wouldn't have to worry about profitability, at any rate.
>equip drones with 10$ oakleys
just shoot them, dumbass, you can do it with a rifle. if you can aim a laser at something that will do temporary damage you can aim a rifle at it and do permanent damage. the issue isn't that people don't have a way to disable drones, the issue is that they don't know the drone is there before its too late.
>just shoot them, dumbass, you can do it with a rifle. if you can aim a laser at something that will do temporary damage you can aim a rifle at it and do permanent damage. the issue isn't that people don't have a way to disable drones, the issue is that they don't know the drone is there before its too late.
Yes, I get that, and this device would make it much easier to shoot the threat down because it would not only detect it but also provide a vector to the target; one such device can provide a 2d vector, but 2 (or more) devices with known relative positions (aruco, rtkgps, etc) could provide a real-time 3d vector which can be handed off to kinetic weapons systems, augmented reality displays, battlefield information systems, etc
>Another thing is that there's not much of a reason to try to blind drones when you could kill them instead. Systems like Phalanx CIWS can very easily target small incoming projectiles like mortar rounds or enemy drones and kill them, but because of the risk of being murdered by arty you don't see German Gepards (which the Ukrainians have) near the frontlines much.
The Phalanx (and any similar kinetic weapon system) is big and expensive. What I envision is putting these dazzlers on cheap, mobile vehicles similar to toy RC trucks. So cheap it's not even economically sound to fire artillery at it, and too fast for a drone to get on top and drop a grenade.
>Well, with LIDAR you need to be constantly scanning before you can target something, right? Unless you were just relying solely on the operator of the system to spot drones with their eyeballs before activating the system, that is.
>If you've ever seen the drone drop videos the soldiers being targeted often have no idea that the drone is there until a grenade lands on them.
Yes, it would be actively scanning, but the power level can be modulated precisely and the sweep is so quick that the effective irradiance on receiving side is tiny/brief.
>What I envision is putting these dazzlers on cheap, mobile vehicles similar to toy RC trucks. So cheap it's not even economically sound to fire artillery at it, and too fast for a drone to get on top and drop a grenade.
Well this would be nice, but one would need to be able to actually field the things en masse.
In Ukraine both sides are too poor to do that at the moment, and for wealthier countries with serious airforces and better access to EWAR equipment I don't think it'd really be necessary in the first place.
>Yes, it would be actively scanning, but the power level can be modulated precisely and the sweep is so quick that the effective irradiance on receiving side is tiny/brief.
I dunno, Anon. I think you're underestimating how detectable this system would be with the sheer amount of battlefield surveillance they have going on right now.
Best I can say is that you could put a prototype together as a hobby project and pitch the idea to someone.
Worth noting that the Russians have fielded handheld 2.4ghz jamming guns but I'm not sure what their effective range actually is.
Raytheon has a laser hard-kill system in development and General Dynamics has a microwave based kill system too.
>Why don't they just blind them with lasers?
dones move fast and the lazer even with a focus will have to be continually moved to cover them but this is all the while giving away the lasers position for another drone to drop a grenade on it.
Even more fun would be the fact the laser would have to be blasting the lense and if it's not then it's useless
>dones move fast and the lazer even with a focus will have to be continually moved to cover them but this is all the while giving away the lasers position for another drone to drop a grenade on it.
Yes but now you need two drones working together. Suppose I have multiple mobile dazzlers? My dazzlers are moving too, and they know where your drones are. Your flying machines will run out of battery power long before my ground vehicles do.
>Well this would be nice, but one would need to be able to actually field the things en masse.
>In Ukraine both sides are too poor to do that at the moment
How much are you assuming they'd cost?
>Raytheon has a laser hard-kill system in development and General Dynamics has a microwave based kill system too.
yeah that's obviously vastly more demanding, but the devices will be huge (and expensive, so juicy targets)
>Point a lazer into the sky now everyone knows where you are. If the drone didn't see you before, it sees you now.
No, it doesn't. The laser was aimed at the drone for such a short time that the actual number of photons is within the SnR of the camera sensor that picked it up. The reason the LIDAR is able to make sense of the data is because it can sample the reflected light in the absence of the laser and also in its presence, calculating the delta. If you do this at high frequency (which will not be detectable on the receiving side because the CMOS sensor is a sloth by comparison) you can capture lots of samples quickly and get a high confidence result.
And anyway, even in the worst case scenario - the moment the drone knows where you are, you know where it is too. Remember, the most basic function of this device is to detect these drones and alert you that they're present (and where they are).
How long and frequent would you scanning laser be running? What's the power requirement?
I don't rule out the possibility that the big MIC does overlook such a supposedly simple and cheap idea like yours. But would it be that simple?
>How long and frequent would you scanning laser be running? What's the power requirement?
1hz, around 10-20w depending on laser power & onboard compute demands
>I don't rule out the possibility that the big MIC does overlook such a supposedly simple and cheap idea like yours. But would it be that simple?
to be fair, the system in its entirety isn't THAT simple, but I just happen to have all the relevant expertise+experience to know how to build it and that it would do the job
Point a lazer into the sky now everyone knows where you are. If the drone didn't see you before, it sees you now.
>Invisible light spectrum.
Jammers.
yup
well decent nv can see any form of ir laser but the drone can also just easily filter that with some plastic over the lens
>see 1 ground based laser
>send 2 drones from different directions
It's easier to jam drones than to blind them. The problem is the rag tag nature of it all and the unwillingness or inability for both sides to deploy SIGINT and/or jamming that would make operating these drones useless or a death sentence
Either
>You operate a drone, sending out a lot of emissions from the same place and SIGINT triangulates your positions and it gets smashed by a mortars or even a targetted be express delivery mortars
Or
>Your drone flies out and after 200 meter it suddenly stops responding and falls from the sky
This is all about the FPV-Kamikaze drones of course, but I get a feeling the casualties these produce are going to be insignificant compared to modern anti-tank weapons and artillery still. Same shit like the panzerfaust not being such a massive killer of armor compared to guns. But FPV-kamikazes are disproportionally represented in footage we get to see from this conflict.
>It's easier to jam drones than to blind them
but the jamming signal just ends up being used as a targeting signal by your enemy, doesn't it? and it doesn't actually inform you that a drone is present, it's just a spam technique that hopefully cripples one if its nearby.
tbh I'm not even certain that active scanning is necessary. It might be sufficient to just watch the sky and do motion extraction, at least as a first order search function.
And the laser wont?
it's much more difficult to pick up
in depth answers, much appreciated
in your view, is there any small-scale tech (like this) that doesn't exist but would be useful?
>in your view, is there any small-scale tech (like this) that doesn't exist but would be useful?
Some other anon pointed out that the US is already rolling out and testing these SHORAD vehicles that I think are striker born and will basically frick up anything drone. So it's possible.
is also completely correct in that grenade drops are meme tier weapons and even the FPV-drones are likely used to pick off stragglers and insiginificant in the wider scale. These SHORAD systems would likely be used to destroy recon drones more often, which probably are far more dangerous as we have had reports of them spotting enemy positions, being outfitted with thermals and used to call in artillery, or in some cases even doing spotting and correction for the artillery team themselves.
>it's just a spam technique that hopefully cripples one if its nearby.
Yes, but it's also significantly easier to do. All this stuff about active scanning and whatnot is nice and fair, but it just means you're better of getting a SHORAD vehicle just behind the front to target these things. We're not getting miniaturized anti-drone lasers or CWIS anytime soon with the current state of the R&D or focus. Last I checked I saw my country doing some anti-drone stuff which was completely meme tier shit with one of those "jamming rifles" and doing some highschool tier theater play how they disabled one. If they're actually serious about it then it comes down to
>Smaller localized radars and or visial detection units
>SIGINT units and/with jamming capabilities
>Automated (radar guided) dazzling or slaved machine guns
>SHORAD with lasers weapons or prox-fuze autocannons
All of the prox-fuze shit looks expensive and complete overkill. Stuff like Skynex and all that stuff is nice, but it seems terribly expensive
shooting the drones down is easy and the grenade drones are not a tactical or strategically relevant threat. Anywhere with any sort of operation AA is safe from drones because the drones have to radiate to operate and so are absurdly easy to track and target.
All the videos you see of drones dropping grenades on tanks, infantry , trenches and what not notice the target is alone. Its always one tanks RARELY two, NEVER a platoon, always a guy or two in a an *already blown to shit** bunker foxhole or trench. You see videos of oragnized foramtions getting bombs but the vedo drone is always far away, outside of the defensive bubble provided by manned vehicles with mounted light AA and sensors.
Its never an organized unit because an organized unit would likely have working threat receivers and some sort of integrated air defense system, maybe even a purpose built flak tank, which has been shown to easily sweep the skies of drones. Drones are EASY to stop if you have existing AA weapons, the reason you dont see them being shot down is that they are sent out at poorly oganized positions or after failed attacks to hunt stragglers and mop up survivors after artillery barrages.
At the end of the day even many hundreds of drone kills on wounded, cut off or otherwise depleted and isolated soldiers are irrelevant compared to single day of fighting around a major town. More men and tanks died in a week around Bahkmut or Adiivka than in the combination of every drone video we have seen in two years of war. But the drones have certainly had a greater psychological impact than the five thousand men and hundred armored vehicles that a given week in a grinder town devours.
The defense already exist. The unfortunate men starring the sadistic snuff content we see posted are simply not defended by them because they are in a position that has already been compromised by other means and the drones are there cleaning up and filming propaganda.