7 ms·
Beyond jamming, I imagine some kind of autonomous laser system could also be pretty effective at downing large numbers of drones within a given radius.
by Oarch 1y ago
Beyond jamming, I imagine some kind of autonomous laser system could also be pretty effective at downing large numbers of drones within a given radius.
- pjc50 1y agoThe main defence drones have against both lasers and Bofors-type guns is staying low, such that they are below the horizon or behind ground clutter until as late as possible.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoI'm thinking the same thing. You don't even need to fully destroy the drone, if you manage to damage the camera sensors or the exposed lithium cell it's game over for the drone.
- fredthestair 1y agoIt's extremely easy to make surfaces partly reflective and extremely hard to make lasers outside of labs more powerful.
- mattashii 1y agoMore powerful than what? If StyroPyro can build handheld 200W+ LED laser device in his workshop [0], why wouldn't a sufficiently funded military be able to build an anti-drone laser with the same (or higher) power output? Note that his laser burns through various reflective materials, including mirrors, copper, aluminium, and steel. [0] https://youtu.be/UBVlL0FNbSE https://youtu.be/UBVlL0FNbSE
- pixl97 1y agoBurning stuff at 20 feet is much easier than burning stuff at thousands of feet in distance.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fredthestair 1y agoIf a drone is 90% reflective it doesn't need a weapon besides your laser.. (If the star wars approach weren't a scam to enter an ever more expensive race as the side with more money than sense.)
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoMaybe not completely, at least not for the camera sensors. If it has good enough initial targeting data - or a good enough last image from the camera - it may be able to find the target by inertial navigation from there (depending on laser range, of course).
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago> it may be able to find the target by inertial navigation from there Or miss by a long shot and hit a civilian instead.
- jasonjayr 1y agoHow close are we to making a system that can have multiple counter measures autonomously deployed? (1) if prop based, launch something to snare the props (2) if reflective, pre-launch something to spray black non-reflective paint at it, and followup with laser (3) if evasive, approach with random manouvers (4) if unknown, launch everything and see what works, and feed it back to the training data ... etc, etc.
- jandrewrogers 1y agoMirrors are not an effective defense against military lasers. The power levels are too high and dielectric mirrors only work over narrow wavelengths. In the specific case of US military tech, some of the platforms use white lasers such that even dielectric mirrors are pointless.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>Mirrors are not an effective defense against military lasers So the cartoons lied to me?
- gosub100 1y agoI would try a shotgun style subsonic load with an adjustable fin/spoiler system that can be calibrated relative to the range of the target. The projectiles fin would flare out to reduce speed as it approached the target. Then an explosive charge would release a spray of super glue or pancake syrup, or something to gunk up the mechanism or disrupt the airflow on the propeller.
- numpad0 1y agoIt still takes few seconds per target with technologies available right now. That's likely the reason why an operational anti drone laser turret is not a thing yet.
- Retric 1y ago> operational anti drone turret is not a thing yet. I’ve read about a bunch of these systems even if they aren’t in widespread deployment some are still being tested in real world conditions. What about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon) “The Silent Hunter has been used by Saudi Arabia to guard against Houthi drones and missiles.” “During the World Defense Show in Riyadh the February 05, 2024, Poly Technologies announced the first hard-kill engagement of a one-way attack drone.[6]”
- numpad0 1y agoAgain, it takes few seconds per target with current laser tech. Which means they don't have important simultaneous multi target engagement capability. The targets, whether it's plumbing pipe rockets or lipo drones, come in at 100-1000 yards/sec, so you don't really have that many seconds per target. They work in the demo in which you just shoot down the sole target as it fly perpendicular to the machine for both physical and career safety, but when it comes to deploying the thing around your bed, guns make a lot more sense.
- Retric 1y agoThe quotes suggest that system has actually been deployed and used successfully in real world conditions. Also, your objection doesn’t really fit how drones have been used. Massive highly coordinated drone swarms are extremely unusual, the threat is mostly individual drones or small clusters. Many very dangerous drones are well under 100y/s aka 200mph. 1000 yards/second aka Mach 2.7 is well beyond the ‘drones’ people are concerned with and into expensive missile territory. Which is where anti missile systems get used.
- tguvot 1y ago
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoThere's a few, but they're large, expensive, require a lot of electricity and have limited range; there's the Silent Hunter [0] which is 30-100 kilowatts max power but which has a range of up to 4 kilometers. Raytheon has a 10 kilowatt palletized version that can go on a truck bed [1]; I can't find any numbers but it's listed as short-range, so I presume it's only effective at distances of less than 1 km, probably only tens or hundreds of meters. Plus they need to detect the drones first, but there's multiple ways to do that. It likely needs a network of detectors though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon) [1] https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-m...
- tguvot 1y agoIsrael published last week that it made a trial run of the iron beam (10km range or so) during conflict with hezbollai. It had 40 intercepts and full operational deployment is scheduled for this year
- throwaway422432 1y agoEOS (Aust) have a 50-100kW system, 4 km range. https://eos-aus.com/defence/high-energy-laser-weapon/ https://eos-aus.com/defence/high-energy-laser-weapon/ What they are good at is target tracking, having started out in satellite communication. Their tracking system paired with a 30mm Bushmaster cannon and proximity ammo is another solution, and there are apparently 160 of them heading for Ukraine to be mounted on M113 and Kozak vehicles. https://eos-aus.com/defence/counter-drone-systems/slinger/ https://eos-aus.com/defence/counter-drone-systems/slinger/
- neepi 1y agoLike this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Nf8VLCtSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Nf8VLCtSw
- jvanderbot 1y agoNow imagine that but with a shotgun shooting bird/buck shot at decent ROF. Way better. The problem with any point defense system is radiating any energy makes you a big target. So you would want a passive (EO/IR?) or triggered active/passive system.
- lenerdenator 1y ago12 gauge would be fairly strong medicine, but it has to be close in. If the drone is a stabilized gun platform with the ability to aim decently well (<4 MoA @ 100 yards) that's not going to be a winning battle.
- wiseowise 1y agoThat’s assuming there’s a single drone and not an intelligent swarm that will circle around you.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jvanderbot 1y agoYes, I'm assuming reality.
- jvanderbot 1y agoTaking the discussion back to reality, almost all uses of drones at the moment are via suicide ("wire guided COTS missiles", you might call them), or just plain old recon. There are probably still plenty of grenades dropped from hover as well. For those uses, there's a fairly decent approach ["missile"] or hover ["bomber"] stage that is probably plenty vulnerable to autonomous PDS via 12 guage medicine. Tracking / detection could even be passive, partly acoustic, partly EO/IR, with only a small fire control radar if you really want it.
- jajko 1y agoWhy nobody us building automated shotgun based solutions for anti-air defenses... maybe they need more than 100-150m reliable reach? Having 300 of those covering one airfield may not be ideal, nor cost effective, nor easy to manufacture and deploy and maintain in such numbers... we talk about russia after all, they let most of their strategic bombers arrogantly unprotected on runways with full gas tanks. I don't think western common folks grok how depraved that country is in terms of doing good work, reward systems for such and corruption on every single level. puttin' built a mafia state and pushed this behavior from top->bottom, and these are side effects. Not some soviet competence and discipline, which wasn't stellar either but light years ahead of current state.
- bell-cot 1y agoBest-case scenario: The expensive laser system just became the most obvious and highest-value target in the area.
- theptip 1y agoDepends, in this case the strategic bombers are worth more.
- bell-cot 1y agoMicro-scale, very likely true. Bigger picture - if knocking the laser defense off-line slashes the unit cost of destroying bombers, then it may be the obvious first move in any competent attack.
- jajko 1y agoTake 5 drones, sneak from other directions and simply overwhelm the system. If in pair, multiply the attackers via some decoys, it becomes just a statistics game. I can imagine this protecting some future US bases in same way C-RAM is used. But from what I read from ie Iraq veterans they had it turned off most of the time for the fear of shooting down its own planes. So much for trust in high tech if its too powerful and automated. Chinese have some systems, but from demo I've seen the laser beam took some serious time to shoot a single missile. Drones are smaller and way more fragile (so also harder to hit) but this ain't Star trek or Star wars.
- dw_arthur 1y agoI think you'll probably see mini flak guns, lasers, microwaves, and defensive kamikaze drones as the main defensive tools
- glitchc 1y agoLasers aren't effective. Most of the drone is just an empty frame. The control board is pretty tiny, as is the ordnance. Targeting those or the propulsion systems is quite difficult. Sure, you can punch holes in the chassis but it takes a lot of guesswork to hit something vital. It's the wrong weapon. Something with an area of effect, like a shotgun or a net is much better suited to stopping drones.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tguvot 1y agoIsrael published last week that it (trialed) deployed laser system to shoot down drones year ago at North. It had 40 intercepts or so. Full operational deployment scheduled for the end of this year
- glitchc 1y agoYou mean the demo done recently? The article might be misleading. The IDF tested 20 different systems produced by their military OEMs. It wasn't just lasers, and lasers are far from being the clear winner. Here's the official post, it contains a demonstration video: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/israelimod_israel-mod-completes-extensive-testing-of-activity-7292904095802122244-Ylug/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAClQTrMB38HnPRfQdlkP96dcQtr5sYT-39E https://www.linkedin.com/posts/israelimod_israel-mod-complet...
- tguvot 1y agono https://www.yahoo.com/news/historic-breakthrough-idf-reveals-laser-152824780.html?guccounter=1 https://www.yahoo.com/news/historic-breakthrough-idf-reveals...
- glitchc 1y agoDid you read your own article? It was developed last year and one of the weapons tested in February of this year as per the IDF post. The rest is Rafael marketing speak.
- ianburrell 1y agoOne thing I haven't seen explored is using autonomous drones as defense. Like hand sized drones optimized for speed and maneuverability intercepting larger drones. They should be super cheap. They would also be small enough for troops and vehicles to carry one.
- maxglute 1y agoAnduril Anvil does drone-drone intercepts from a few years ago.