Weapons against drones will make better and cheaper: how will it help in the war with the Russian Federation (video)

Russia's war against Ukraine has shown how important weapons can be even ordinary, commercial, drones, and therefore it is important for the military to have at hand and tools to combat the UAV of the enemy. About how developers manage to improve antitrone systems, says focus.

Portable antitus systems (C-UAS), though long ago, have gained popularity relatively recently, namely, when quadcopters began to be sold in retail, and people began to use them massively and actively for shooting, and others. entertainment. In the report of the Bard College Drone Study, which was published in 2019, out of 537 C-UAS systems that existed at the time, 111 (21%) were portable and sold in 29 countries, Defensenws. com reports.

But over the last 10 years, the goals and methods of using these systems have undergone significant changes. According to Warren Brown of Fortem Technologies, when it comes to ensuring the safety of large -scale measures or objects of critically important infrastructure, fixed systems were used. However, military conflicts in recent years, for example, in the Middle East, and especially Russia's aggression against Ukraine, have made popular weapons against drones that can be used "on the go".

It greatly expands the capabilities of radar detection of enemy drones, easy to use and unfold, relatively inexpensive in maintenance and operation. In general, portable antitrone systems have proven themselves well in the military. In fact, portable C-UAS is what is commonly called an antitrone gun today. The military has encountered some problems using traditional radio signals to "land" the enemy drones.

With not enough resources and opportunities, the military used various systems of radio electronic wrestling (HRV) in the past years - cumbersome, difficult to maintain and noticeable for artillery. Moreover, such systems are quite outdated quite quickly, and therefore have not always been effective in combating the latest UAV models, Brown says. "Traditional HRS systems are not always effective, and therefore impractical and even roads in production, operation, maintenance.

When enemies use small, low -flying and maneuverable drones, then it is difficult to detect them. Therefore, the same technique for confrontation was a small technique. , easy, practical, " - said the expert. Manufacturers drew attention to these problems and began to develop technologies that can reflect the attack of small drones, which are more difficult to resist. In May 2022, Fortem Technology sent portable Dronehunters to Ukraine, designed on the basis of a previous C-UAS system.

Everything that engineers did was reduced, simplified and reduced the weight of this C-UAS so that the Armed Forces soldiers can use the antironous system "from their hands". Modernized technology has taken root among the military. Droneshield Director General, Matt McCranne, believes that antitrone weapons should become "smaller, better and cheaper", as the drones themselves.

After all, we often received messages from the front about how effectively "wedding" quadcopters conduct reconnaissance, adjust fire and even attack the enemy, carrying as a useful load of grenade. The focus has repeatedly wrote about Droneguns rifles from Droneshield, but it will not be superfluous to be reminded of their benefits. Such C-UAS can be transported in a regular car, transferred to a backpack, charged from batteries, and batteries, in turn, can be changed if they break.

Droneguns is not kinetic weapon, but attack drones due to powerful radio signals that cause failures at the same time in several ranges of radio frequencies. As a result, the UAV loses communication with the operator and land or returns. Antironous rifles can produce an unlimited number of "shots", which is more economical than kinetic systems and safer in operation. You can learn how to use it in minutes. There is also a cheaper counterpart - Dronehunters F700 from Fortem.

According to Warren Brown, every shot of the Dronehunters F700 weapon costs only a few hundred dollars, which is much cheaper than high -energy systems, such as electromagnetic pulse (laser) weapons, which also requires a powerful source of electricity. The additional advantage of the Fortem system is that it can knock down the drones with a brake parachute without damaging the aircraft.

In the future, it makes it possible to study how the enemy UAV is arranged, re -use it for their own purposes, saving on their own devices. This method is beneficial not only from an economic point of view, but also from a safety point of view, because if you shoot on a drone, it can be injured from its debris, or it can damage all kinds of objects, including civilians. Fortem claims that from more than 5,000 documented drones with Dronehunters antitrone systems, 92%were successful.

Despite the advantages offered by these Antiped systems, experts warn that the smaller the system by dimensions and the cheaper cost, the less effective it can be in fact. "Engineers try to compromise and reduce C-uas, but it can adversely affect the total output of the system. In other words, the smaller it, the smaller its range of action, which means that the fighter will need to be as close as possible to the attacked OB 'and then the risks to him increase,-explains Mett McCrann.