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Useless. Drones are not "seen" with cameras and then identified as drones. They are detected on radar, or by their control signals, and identified based on ho

Useless. Drones are not "seen" with cameras and then identified as drones. They are detected on radar, or by their control signals, and identified based on how they sound electronically. Making it look like a bird to the human eye as useful as it would seem. If you want to fool a cassual observer, say a soldier glancing upwards occasionally, then shape it like a soaring hawk. But dont bother with flapping wings. Just use a transparent prop. About 1000 feet nobody will tell the difference.

girvo 3y ago
> Drones are not "seen" with cameras and then identified as drones Depends. Not every part of the Ukraine front has state of the art EWAR capabilities (on either side), and is infested with drones. That said, it's still not that useful IMO simply because soldiers can't really notice normal quadrocopter drones when they're flying high anyway, or even if they can there's so many of them because they're so cheap that it doesn't matter if the drone doesn't make a return trip. Agreed that bird-like-but-soaring would be a better fit -- I can't see flapping as needed at all
- sandworm101 3y ago
  But most all of ukraine does have laptops and SDR dongles capable of sniffing out a drone that is transmitting footage back to controllers. Add a directional antenna and you can build a reasonable drone detector for a few hundred bucks.
  - m4rtink 3y ago
    I guess you could do a recon version that dumps footage once it gets back - no rel time feed but could be useful for cladestinly looking for more static things. Still, its more likely faster flying screemer drones from hell will get even better to not make this thing useful. Like, when I saw the Screamers movie from a rented VHS cassette many years ago, I would not think I would see it happen in reality- but even more deadly! Like sure, in the movie those killer robots were autonomous and self replicating. But they still had just a tiny buzz saw & had to jump from the ground to gut soft targets like infantrymen. They didn't fly at you at 200 km/h with a HEAT warhead that can kill a modern main battle tank by single well placed hit!
krisoft 3y ago
I believe the biggest application of this tech would be to freak out your adversaries and make them commit inordinate amounts of resources to scrutinise and track birds around their installations. To do that you don’t even need a working drone, just presentations and flashy advertising.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Just fly a kite that is transparent except for the bird printed on it. Make it as cheap as possible.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    I don’t think you understand what I wrote. Flying a transparent kite is not cheaper than not flying anything at all. The other thing with a transparent kite (or any other physical thing) is that it is concrete. Your adversary looks at it, laughs and figures out 15 things to counter it. But if you succesfully hint the idea that you have a bird shaped drone in their mind without showing any example they will drive themselves mad by paranoia. Because then any bird can be a spy, and the fact that they haven’t found a single one yet is just further proof how stealthy these things are!
g-b-r 3y ago
One of the two main applications is for civil surveillance. Your constituents usually don't have radars

girvo 3y ago

> Drones are not "seen" with cameras and then identified as drones Depends. Not every part of the Ukraine front has state of the art EWAR capabilities (on either side), and is infested with drones. That said, it's still not that useful IMO simply because soldiers can't really notice normal quadrocopter drones when they're flying high anyway, or even if they can there's so many of them because they're so cheap that it doesn't matter if the drone doesn't make a return trip. Agreed that bird-like-but-soaring would be a better fit -- I can't see flapping as needed at all

sandworm101 3y ago
But most all of ukraine does have laptops and SDR dongles capable of sniffing out a drone that is transmitting footage back to controllers. Add a directional antenna and you can build a reasonable drone detector for a few hundred bucks.
- m4rtink 3y ago
  I guess you could do a recon version that dumps footage once it gets back - no rel time feed but could be useful for cladestinly looking for more static things. Still, its more likely faster flying screemer drones from hell will get even better to not make this thing useful. Like, when I saw the Screamers movie from a rented VHS cassette many years ago, I would not think I would see it happen in reality- but even more deadly! Like sure, in the movie those killer robots were autonomous and self replicating. But they still had just a tiny buzz saw & had to jump from the ground to gut soft targets like infantrymen. They didn't fly at you at 200 km/h with a HEAT warhead that can kill a modern main battle tank by single well placed hit!

krisoft 3y ago

I believe the biggest application of this tech would be to freak out your adversaries and make them commit inordinate amounts of resources to scrutinise and track birds around their installations. To do that you don’t even need a working drone, just presentations and flashy advertising.

dylan604 3y ago
Just fly a kite that is transparent except for the bird printed on it. Make it as cheap as possible.
- krisoft 3y ago
  I don’t think you understand what I wrote. Flying a transparent kite is not cheaper than not flying anything at all. The other thing with a transparent kite (or any other physical thing) is that it is concrete. Your adversary looks at it, laughs and figures out 15 things to counter it. But if you succesfully hint the idea that you have a bird shaped drone in their mind without showing any example they will drive themselves mad by paranoia. Because then any bird can be a spy, and the fact that they haven’t found a single one yet is just further proof how stealthy these things are!

g-b-r 3y ago

One of the two main applications is for civil surveillance. Your constituents usually don't have radars