As the drone whirrs into the sky, something unusual is seen trailing 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 sitting on the roadside.
Such fibre optic drones are the latest example of low-tech solutions being used to combat hi-tech electronic warfare 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.
X/@GrandpaRoy2
Last year, General 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 in Ukraine.
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, they’ve had to take a simpler step to keep their drones flying and effective.
“Fibre optic drones were developed by Russia to counter the problems of effective EW,” Justin Crump, CEO of the strategic intelligence company Sibylline, said.
“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 electronic warfare (EW) jammers are unable to scramble the usual radio frequencies used to guide it.
“Although the technology is not new, it is highly effective in modern warfare, particularly against active enemy electronic countermeasures,” Ihor Yu, a Ukrainian drone pilot, said.
“Despite some operational challenges, these drones are essential for accomplishing specialised tasks successfully.”
Many of the fibre optic drones look much like the other UAVs on display – quadcopters with explosives fitted in between the propellers.
The only difference is a cylindrical spooling mechanism which sits under the belly of the drone to carry and disperse the fibre optic cabling.
“Russian forces are increasingly using drones attached to fibre optic cables in Ukraine,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on Wednesday.
The assessment came after a Russian report complained that their drones had been “nailed to the ground” by Ukrainian EW when Kyiv’s men launched a surprise attempt to drive deeper into Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday.
“Our drones can’t do anything about it,” the Kremlin-friendly journalist wrote of the advancing columns of Ukrainian armour.
Russian sources, according to ISW, report that the first fibre optic drones were integrated into Russian units for combat operations on Wednesday.
Credit: X/@JKleinschmidtIR
However, they’ve been tested on the battlefield for a lot longer.
Analysts say Russia likely has the upper hand in the production and use of these EW-dodging drones on the frontlines.
But Ukrainian producers are mounting a fightback, also starting to manufacture and test their own models to overcome Moscow’s advantage in EW, including jamming and hacking techniques.
Over a dozen fibre optic drones were debuted at a recent demonstration organised by Kyiv’s ministry of defence.
“Russia continues to enhance its capabilities in using fibre optic-controlled drone technologies, so it is crucial to neutralise its advantages in this segment,” Yevhenii Tkachenko, head of drones at Ukraine’s defence innovation department, said.
“Domestic manufacturers are demonstrating their readiness to quickly adapt to modern wartime challenges and implement cutting-edge developments.”
But it is not as simple as attaching two empty tins of baked beans together.
When in action, the cable on the drones is at risk of getting snagged on the way to its target – @NOELreports
The wiring has proved a challenge for producers.
While it is considered sturdy, it is prone to becoming caught up in the drone’s propellers.
The second issue is range. The longer the cable, the heavier the drone, so the explosive payload must be lightened to compensate.
One Ukrainian producer, 3DTech, told Forbes that the spooling mechanism weighs around 300 grams and the three miles of cable weighs another 1.25 kilograms, meaning the overall size of the bomb must be reduced by almost three kilos.
Drone operators will also have to learn a whole new set of skills from what they’ve developed over the course of the war.
Dangling cable isn’t a perfect science, so a number of external factors – including pilot skill and if the drone is travelling through a heavily forested area – can affect its likelihood of getting snagged. During one test flight, a Ukrainian pilot knocked over a cyclist who crossed paths with the drone and the cable, according to Forbes.
While the cable unspools as the drone moves to avoid tension, the fibre optic wires can easily break if they are tangled around obstacles sitting in between the pilot and his final target.
“This control system has been comparatively rare globally due to the inherent drawbacks, but will likely receive increased attention in terms of both exploitation and how to counter the enduring threat posed,” Mr Crump said.
Ukrainian soldiers defending against these fibre optic drones have said they are susceptible to small arms fire because they are not as manoeuvrable as wireless UAVs.
A Russian military blogger acknowledged their country’s forces would soon have to be defending against similar Ukrainian creations.
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