Author Topic: Drones/UAV/UAS/Bots and Balloons  (Read 144118 times)

Body-by-Guinness

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High Speed, Tight Confine Drone Tested
« Reply #400 on: February 01, 2025, 02:33:58 PM »
Though not discussed, there are some Orwellian applications implicit here:

This Autonomous Drone Can Track Humans Through Dense Forests at High Speed
SingularityHub / by Edd Gent / Jan 31, 2025 at 6:26 PM

Drones that fly themselves, and don’t crash, are improving fast.

Autonomous drones could revolutionize a wide range of industries. Now, scientists have designed a drone that can weave through dense forests, dodge thin power lines in dim lighting, and even track a jogging human.

Rapid improvements in sensor technology and artificial intelligence are making it increasingly feasible for drones to fly themselves. But autonomous drones remain far from foolproof, which has restricted their use to low-risk situations such as delivering food in well-organized cities.

If the technology is ever to have an impact in domains like search and rescue, sports, or even warfare, small drones need to become both more maneuverable and more reliable. That prompted researchers from the University of Hong Kong to develop a new micro air vehicle, or MAV, that can navigate challenging environments at speed.

The new drone, named SUPER, combines lidar technology with a unique two-trajectory navigation system to balance safety and speed. In real-world tests, it outperformed commercial drones in both tracking and collision avoidance, while flying at more than 20 meters per second (45 miles per hour).

“SUPER represents a milestone in transitioning high-speed autonomous navigation from laboratory settings to real-world applications,” the researchers wrote in a paper in Science Robotics introducing the new drone.

According to the authors, the inspiration for the project came from birds’ ability to nimbly navigate cluttered forest environments. To replicate this capability, they first designed a drone just 11 inches across with a thrust-to-weight ratio of more than five, which allowed it to carry out aggressive high-speed maneuvers.

They then fitted it with a lightweight lidar device capable of detecting obstacles at up to 70 meters. Given they were targeting high-speed flight, the researchers say they were keen to avoid the kind of motion blur that camera-based systems suffer from.

Most important though, was the navigation system they designed for the drone. At each route-planning cycle, SUPER’s flight controller generates two flight trajectories towards its goal. The first is designed to be a high-speed route and assumes that some of the areas ahead with limited lidar data are free of obstacles. The second is a back-up trajectory that focuses on safety, only passing through areas known to be free of obstacles.

The drone starts by following the high-speed trajectory but switches to the backup if the real-time lidar data detects anything in the way. To test out the approach, the researchers pitted it against two other research drones and a commercial drone in a series of trials, which involved flying at high speed, dodging thin electrical wires, navigating a dense forest, and flying at night.

The SUPER drone achieved a nearly perfect success rate of 99.63 percent across all the trials, which is nearly 36 times better than the best alternative the researchers tested. This was all while achieving faster flight speeds and significantly reduced planning times.

The drone also demonstrated excellent object tracking, successfully tailing someone jogging through dense forest. In contrast, the commercial drone, which used vision-based sensors, ultimately lost track of the target.

The researchers suggest that the development of smaller, lighter lidar systems and aerodynamic optimizations could enable even higher speeds. Imbuing SUPER with the ability to detect moving objects and predict their motion could also improve its ability to operate in highly dynamic environments.

Given its already impressive performance though, it seems like it won’t be long before fast, agile drones are buzzing over our heads in all kinds of places.

The post This Autonomous Drone Can Track Humans Through Dense Forests at High Speed appeared first on SingularityHub.

https://singularityhub.com/2025/01/31/this-autonomous-drone-can-track-humans-through-dense-forests-at-high-speed/


Crafty_Dog

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Russians Erect Mesh Tunnel against Uke FPV drones
« Reply #402 on: February 12, 2025, 06:47:16 AM »
https://www.twz.com/news-features/russians-erect-mesh-net-tunnel-over-a-mile-long-to-counter-ukrainian-fpv-drones

Russians Erect Mesh Net ‘Tunnel’ Over A Mile Long To Counter Ukrainian FPV Drones
Enclosing an entire roadway in mesh netting is the latest in an ongoing effort to protect against these highly maneuverable weapons.
Howard Altman

Russian troops have set up a 2km (1.24 mile) mesh netting “tunnel” on a road linking Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The mesh netting is designed to protect Russian logistics against first-person view (FPV) drones that have become a ubiquitous attack weapon for both sides. The move comes as Russian forces are launching another major push against the town of Chasiv Yar.

“To cover the supply routes of the Russian Armed Forces from FPV drones, military engineers are installing protective nets,” a Russian soldier said on a video showing the construction of the mesh net tunnel. “Our group maintains more than two kilometers of anti-drone nets. The nets are placed on the most exposed sections of the roads to ensure the safe movement of our equipment. We strive to continuously expand the coverage area, enhancing the installation technology of the nets to set them up more quickly.”

The video shows Russian troops unrolling a spool of mesh netting, which they then attached to 15- to 20-foot poles spaced evenly along both sides of the road. The theory is that the netting will provide a buffer to keep Ukrainian FPV drones from directly striking vehicles.

“The expectation is that the FPV drone, on the final trajectory of its attack, will simply get entangled with its propellers in the taut net or go off course, even if it manages to break it,” the Russian Military Informant Telegram channel wrote.


Russian troops built a mesh net ‘tunnel’ to protect against Ukrainian FPV drones. (X screencap)
You can see how Ukrainian FPV drones have affected Russian vehicle traffic in the following video.

The netting is the latest iteration of the ongoing efforts by each side to develop drone technology and ways to counter it.

“A year ago, the enemy created roads covered by electronic warfare posts,” Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov, also known as Serhii Flash, wrote on Telegram about the mesh tunnel. “Now drones have so many frequencies that it is not realistic to close them with electronic warfare (EW). And plus, drones with [artificial intelligence] and drones on fiber optic [cables] have appeared.”

Yuri Podolyaka, an influential Russian milblogger, suggested that the anti-FPV drone netting is a creation by troops in the field on an ad hoc basis because the Russian Defense Ministry is providing insufficient EW equipment.

“This is the ingenuity of the fighters against the bureaucrats of the General Staff who are still unable to understand that today electronic warfare is more important than tanks,” Podolyaka wrote on Telegram. “And even more so than a bunch of different expensive junk that was created for war and which is absolutely useless now. But which is still being mass-produced by our factories (and often ahead of schedule).”

The anti-FPV drone system erected in Donetsk is not the first time Russians have tried to use netting on a grand scale to defeat these fast, highly maneuverable weapons. As we previously reported, the Russians used mesh nets strung between lamposts on a road near Bakhmut to try and break up and deter FPV drones. However, the Ukrainians quickly found a workaround, flying over the nets to strike targets behind them. That system, however, did not have side or top netting that would provide better, encapsulated protection. The following video shows how Ukrainian FPV drone operators overcame that netting.

“Similar initiatives to hang anti-drone nets along roads in the Bakhmut direction have been observed since 2023. But such an extended single structure is encountered for the first time,” the Russian Military Informant Telegram channel noted. “The downside is that such networks will need to be constantly updated, given the intensity with which the enemy uses its kamikazes against Russian logistics.”

Another potential downside not addressed by Russian sources is how these nets would hold up against Ukrainian drone-dropped munitions. Those could take out not just the nets, but the poles supporting them without exposing the drone to the mesh countermeasure. Even FPV drones with the ability to command detonate would also punch holes in these nets, allowing other FPVs to enter.

Given the vast number of deadly FPV drones deployed, however, even an imperfect solution could prove beneficial. One noted Russian milblogger suggests that is already the case in Chasiv Yar, a town Russia has partially held since last July and is making another large push to capture the rest.

“Now, along the road, supplies are calmly flowing to the units liberating Chasiv Yar,” Oleg Tsarov posited on Telegram. The city, as the following video shows, has been devastated by the fighting.

Still, creating a netted ‘tunnel’ of sorts will also confine Russian forces to a very narrow and well-defined corridor that can be bombarded by artillery and other means of attack. This could prove to be a far more ‘fatal funnel’ than what an open road plagued by FPV attacks would be.

It will be interesting to see how successful this tactic ends up being. We will likely know more in the near future.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Crafty_Dog

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FO: NorthCom: Drones pose increasing threat to US
« Reply #405 on: February 15, 2025, 08:10:44 AM »
Note the last sentence!!!

(2) NORTHCOM: DRONES POSE INCREASING THREAT TO U.S.: During a Senate Armed Services hearing yesterday, U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) Commander Gen. Gregory Guillot said over 350 unauthorized drone incursions were detected over 100 U.S. military installations, and more than 1,000 unauthorized drones were detected along the southern border in 2024.

Guillot said drones pose an increasing threat to homeland security and military readiness, due to foreign adversary surveillance of U.S. military facilities, and the vulnerability of U.S. facilities and critical infrastructure to drone-borne improvised explosive attacks.

Why It Matters: Defense officials are warning that non-nuclear government facilities lack counter drone capabilities. Hobbyist drones are likely responsible for much of this unauthorized drone activity, however, these facilities remain vulnerable to foreign-backed drone attacks. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced the COUNTER Act, which would give U.S. military base commanders the authority to take down suspicious drones that approach facilities. - R.C