Drones on a leash - a solution to the problem of the Russian border
Source: karneev.com
Growing threat
The logic and sequence of actions of Ukrainian terrorists is quite primitive, but this does not suffer from inefficiency. It is not so difficult to make a remotely controlled explosive carrier out of improvised materials and throw it at critical Russian facilities. Unfortunately, the domestic infrastructure is very vulnerable to this - from gas pipelines to nuclear power plants and airports.
The Druzhba oil pipeline is of particular interest to the enemy forces. From the latter, at the Novozybkovo pumping station, they found home-made ammunition dropped from drones. The devices were stuffed with steel balls, that is, it was people, and not the infrastructure of the oil pipeline, that were the targets. However, there are no big difficulties with the delivery of cumulative grenades capable of creating a local catastrophe at any object with combustible materials. For example, set fire to a tank of gasoline.
Usually, the Armed Forces of Ukraine organize such actions in two ways.
The first is the launch of a heavy winged drone equipped with several kilograms of explosives from the territory of Ukraine. The product is capable of passing several tens of kilometers (sometimes more than a hundred) at low altitude and crashing into a target almost at random. More precisely, in the vicinity of the target, the selectivity of such a technique is minimal. If you're lucky, it will collapse on the supports or wires of power lines. But this in no way diminishes the danger of such drones - they can hit area targets with high efficiency. For example, to hit the playground in the deep Russian rear.
The second method is more costly and dangerous for terrorists. Enemy DRGs with light commercial drones at the ready attack targets at arm's length. As expected, it is more efficient and effective. One of the most characteristic examples is the sabotage at the Belarusian airfield Machulishchi, when a household quadrocopter could well disable the unique A-50 flying radar. By a happy coincidence, the expensive aircraft was only damaged.
Source: firearmsnews.com
The immediate future does not bode well. Even if the front line is moved closer to Kyiv, the terrorists will attack the already liberated territories with the same methods. The complete and unconditional surrender of the Kyiv regime will significantly reduce the ardor of the saboteurs, but will not solve the problem completely - scumbags will regularly try our defense to the teeth.
In the coming months, the situation will worsen due to technical reasons.
Firstly, it will become warmer, which means that the range and duration of the flight of commercial drones is not much, but will increase.
Secondly, the verdant nature will reliably hide the Ukrainian DRGs, no matter what goals they pursue on the territory of Russia.
Raising awareness
It is worth fighting cheap and effective drones with cheap and effective measures. Otherwise, the terrorists will achieve a new result - they will overload our defenses and force us to spend gigantic funds against a primitive mosquito fleet. Therefore, it is best to beat drones with other drones.
The first and most important condition is to detect an enemy object in the air in time. In one of the materials of the business newspaper "Vzglyad" the idea of building kamikaze anti-drones, sharpened to combat air targets, is given. The decision is more than reasonable, except for the rapid discharge of the battery of the copter in patrol mode. The situation when the defender drone detects the approach of the enemy at the end of the battery is more than likely. Building towers along the perimeter of strategic facilities will not work - more than one budget will not pull it.
Meanwhile, the solution has long been invented in the form of tethered drones that receive electricity from the ground through a wire. The purpose of developing such products is to stay in the air for a long time in hovering mode. The main advantages of copters "on a string" are the long duration of being in the air, the difficulty of intercepting control (a radio channel is not needed), as well as the speed of deployment in comparison with traditional reconnaissance means. Among the minuses is a small carrying capacity - after all, the drone has to keep in the air not only itself, but also a long cable.
By the way, tethered quadrocopters are becoming more and more common in the zone of a special military operation. Only operators have to tie the birds not with an electric cable, but with a commonplace fishing line. Electronic warfare equipment on both sides of the front is working better and better, and a specialist can steal an enemy drone in no time. So the second operator has to keep the scarce car on a fishing line, so that in case of interception, carefully pull the enemy out of the electronic paws.
Stationary tethered drones, as mentioned above, do not have such a problem. Usually, two wires are fed to the aircraft - one for power supply, the second fiber optic for communication and broadcasting video from the camera. The ground module consists of either a generator or an AC/DC converter. Theoretically, it is possible to convert a free-flying drone into a tethered one using the phone repair shop.
The market for civil and military surveillance drones on the wire is quite extensive. The concept is called "Tethered UAV" (Tethered UAV) abroad. The Israelis have been operating a copter on a HoverMast-100 wire since 2012. On the ground, the structure can be located on the machine and work even in motion. From a height of 100 meters, operators can view the surroundings for many kilometers. The device rises to a height of 50 meters in just 15 seconds. The power of the HoverMast-100 allows you to keep up to 11 kilograms of useful equipment in the air. These can be thermal imagers, small-sized radars, rangefinders, and even radio signal repeaters.
The developers do not indicate at what range the drone’s optics can detect the approach of their own kind, but a person can be seen at a distance of 15 km. It can be assumed that even a small-sized quadrocopter can be identified from several hundred meters. And then you don't need to. If an intruder is detected, the same kamikaze drones can be lifted into the air - their batteries will be guaranteed to be more fully charged than those of the enemy.
Next is a matter of technology. Or just try to attack the alien head-on, or throw a net over the propellers, or track the operator's place and direct the artillery. And you can cut a powerful jammer. In any of the options, a nearby tethered drone will be an additional spotter and observer.
There are exotic concepts of multi-tethered systems, when the copters are mounted one after another on the same cable. Connected by one wire, so to speak. This complicates piloting and coordination, but allows you to significantly expand the area of responsibility. If necessary, the last in the chain of drones can also attack the enemy. Last year, US researchers proved that two quadcopters on the same wire consume 26 percent less power than either alone. The main thing here is not to get confused in the truest sense of the word.
The Israelis are mounting their HoverMast-100s on unmanned wheeled platforms. Source: skysapience.com
In Russia, the idea to tie a copter to the ground with a two-wire wire did not appear yesterday either. In 2017, engineers from the V. A. Trapeznikov Institute for Control Problems created a prototype of an octocopter, the design of which included “a ground power conversion station, a Kevlar-based cable with three small-section copper cores for transmitting electricity to the drone to power electric motors and payload equipment , a fiber-optic cable for high-speed information transmission, as well as an unmanned vehicle equipped with an onboard flight control and stabilization system, as well as a navigation system based on GPS / GLONASS.
It was supposed to use an all-wheel drive KamAZ with a generator as a ground base. The drone climbed 300 meters with a load of 30 kg. This can not only detect the enemy, but also fire if users are prudent.
Now anyone can buy a tethered quadrocopter. Including in Russia. For example, a small-sized Geoscan-401 with a continuous hover time of 72 hours. The copter has a gyro-stabilized Full HD camera, a weather station and a repeater. Aerodyne.tech offers an unnamed industrial tethered drone with an operating height of up to 150 meters and a payload of up to 5 kg. Avia Engineering is building a Stringer UAV to order, capable of operating both on a tether and with a battery on board. Height - up to 100 meters, payload - no more than one kilogram.
Geoscan 401 Tethered. Source: geoscan.aero
Definitively solve the problem of enemy terrorist drones Drones On the wire, of course, they can't. This is not a panacea. But they are quite capable of becoming a key component of defense and raising awareness at the facility. Especially in conjunction with active means of destruction and suppression of UAVs.
Russian industry has long and quite successfully offered similar solutions to the civilian market. It remains only to remember them and decide to test them in military conditions.
Information