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Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
A Ukrainian weapons maker is building a new unjammable drone with a 100-kilometer reach. It says 'the war has changed.'
A Ukrainian company is developing an unjammable fiber-optic drone that can roam nearly 100 kilometers from its operator — more than doubling the reach of current models — in a bid to radically extend the reach of one of the war's most feared weapons. The co-founder of Fold, who asked to only be identified as Volodymyr for security reasons, told Business Insider that the range upgrade is essential as Ukraine races to match a battlefield that shifts by the day and punishes anything that can't keep up. "Today, war has changed," Volodymyr said in emailed remarks. The high-value targets are farther away from the front lines than they used to be, making it imperative that drones have the reach. Fiber-optic drones are regular first-person-view (FPV) drones — small, commercially available quadcopters that can cost as little as a few hundred dollars and carry a large enough explosive payload to destroy a multimillion-dollar tank. However, instead of a radio frequency connection between the drone and its operator, fiber-optic drones are fitted with spools of long, thin cables to preserve a steady link. This makes them practically immune to electronic warfare tactics and especially dangerous in combat. For soldiers, the only real hope of stopping an unjammable drone is with a shotgun. There's a lot of luck in that kind of defense. With no reliable solutions to defend against fiber-optic drones, which can deliver precision strikes, they are emerging as a weapon of choice for Ukraine and Russia. Production is ramping up, and cables are now stretching across the battlefield, glistening in the sun like spider webs, as combat videos have shown. Fold is one of many Ukrainian companies working on fiber-optic drones for the country's armed forces. The firm started out building drones with a 5-kilometer range, but has since extended this to 15 and up to 25 kilometers — relatively standard distances. Volodymyr said this "first generation" of fiber-optic drones was more relevant last year when enemy positions were closer, sometimes even visible with the naked eye, at a distance of several kilometers. He said the front lines now look different from earlier in the conflict. Opposing troop positions have moved farther away from each other, creating a large gap — or a "gray zone" — that serves as a graveyard for tanks, armored vehicles, and soldiers. Important and expensive military equipment is harder to reach. "The flight range of 10-15 kilometers is often insufficient to destroy large enemy targets," Volodymyr said. He added that fiber-optic drones able to fly beyond 30 kilometers are more relevant at this stage in the war, and Fold is working on these kinds of drones, including some with ranges of 40 and 50 kilometers. Samuel Bendett, a drone expert and an advisor in the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research institution, told Business Insider that both Russia and Ukraine are working on 40-kilometer fiber-optic spools, noting "there is evidence at the front that such strikes are already taking place." But Fold is aiming farther than this. The company has initiated the research and development process of a second generation of fiber-optic drones, and it plans to launch drones with a range between 50 and 100 kilometers within the next few months. Bendett said "longer distances are certainly achievable," but they will depend on the skill of drone pilots and other factors. It is nearly certain, he added, that the ambitious range extensions will come with considerable technical and environmental challenges. One of the biggest vulnerabilities of fiber-optic drones is their cables, which can get easily snagged or tangled on the battlefield — either through enemy action or accident. The expanded ranges will require much longer coils than previous variants, potentially making drones more susceptible to hang-ups. An official familiar with warfighting innovations in Ukraine, who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to discuss this technology, said that longer cables raise the risk that the drone will encounter more obstacles on its path that could damage it. The longer cables needed to satisfy the expanded range also add to the drone's weight, which could force developers to reduce the size of its combat payload, ultimately making the weapon less deadly and reducing its combat effectiveness. The official said the extended-range drones will require larger frames to support the added weight. This could drive up costs and make the drones less nimble on the battlefield. Volodymyr acknowledges the challenges in fielding this kind of technology. However, there are potential engineering workarounds, and he said the extended range will not compromise the drone's resistance to electronic warfare, the priority with this tech. "That is exactly how we made it. This was the main goal of our development (or invention)," he stressed. It's unclear whether other Ukrainian companies are trying to expand the range of their drones as far as Fold hopes, but fiber-optic drone manufacturing continues to be a major focus of Kyiv's defense industry as cheap, uncrewed aerial systems prove their unrelenting dominance on the battlefield. "Conventional small arms are no longer as relevant as they were in the past," Volodymyr said. "Shooting from rifles and machine guns is often useless. The bullets simply do not reach the enemy." Fiber-optic drones "play a very important role in eliminating attacks (assaults)," he said, referring to Russian mechanized infantry and armored assaults on Ukrainian posts. "They destroy enemy armored vehicles and personnel on distant approaches — tens of kilometers from the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where small arms cannot reach."
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Yahoo
‘They cannot be jammed': fibre optic drones pose new threat in Ukraine
On the battlefields of Ukraine, new sights emerge. Thread-like filaments of wire, extended across open fields. Netting rigged up between trees along key supply roads. Both are responses to a hard-to-detect weapon able to sneak into spaces previously thought safe, hi tech and low tech all at once. At a secret workshop in Ukraine's north-east, where about 20 people assemble hundreds of FPV (first person view) drones, there is a new design. Under the frame of the familiar quadcopter is a cylinder, the size of a forearm. Coiled up inside is fibre optic cable, 10km (6 miles) or even 20km long, to create a wired kamikaze drone. Capt Yuriy Fedorenko, the commander of a specialist drone unit, the Achilles regiment, says fibre optic drones were an experimental response to battlefield jamming and rapidly took off late last year. With no radio connection, they cannot be jammed, are difficult to detect and able to fly in ways conventional FPV drones cannot. 'If pilots are experienced, they can fly these drones very low and between the trees in a forest or tree line. If you are flying with a regular drone, the trees block the signal unless you have a re-transmitter close,' he observes. Where tree lined supply roads were thought safer, fibre optic drones have been able to get through. A video from a Russian military Telegram channel from last month demonstrates their ominous capability. A fibre optic drone, the nose of the yellow cylinder housing the coil clearly visible, flies with precision a few centimetres from the ground, to strike a Ukrainian howitzer concealed in a barn, a location clearly previously considered safe. Soldiers have quickly come to fear them. Oleksii, a combat medic, working in Pokrovsk, the busiest front in Ukraine's east, says daytime evacuations of the wounded, already very difficult, have become impossible. 'It's just not happening now there are fibre optic drones. They cannot be jammed and for now they are the main concern for the guys on the frontline,' he said. But as Fedorenko acknowledges, it is Russia that, at least for now, 'is well ahead of us' – largely because Moscow has had greater access to fibre optic cabling, with Ukraine scrambling to catch up. Fibre optic drones were heavily used in Russia's counterattack in Kursk and experts believe they were an element in Moscow's success in largely rolling up Ukraine's salient in March. Experts estimate that drones of all types now contribute to about 70% to 80% of military casualties on both sides. As for fibre optic craft, Samuel Bendett, a drone expert with the Center for Naval Analyses, said they appear to be proving useful at the start of an assault, in an environment where cheap remotely piloted vehicles are increasingly taking the place of artillery. 'Since these drones cannot be jammed by electronic warfare, they're used as a first wave of attack to target adversarial electronic warfare and jamming capability. That then clears the way for regular radio-controlled FPV drones to strike,' he said. Because they are wired, they also deliver high quality images of the target – useful for battlefield intelligence – 'up until the last second of the strike'. At the urban workshop, part of the Achilles regiment, Dmytro, gives a tour. A conventional FPV drone can cost $400 (£302), excluding the price of its explosive payload, but the cable adds the same amount again. There are complications with the equipment, the cabling is sensitive to damage and its connector to contamination with dust – but the biggest problem is retraining drone pilots. 'I think each operator [pilot] will have five or six failed missions [in training],' Dmytro says because the craft handles differently. Ten kilometres of fibre optic cable weighs approximately 1.2 to 1.4kg, inevitably transforming how the drone flies through the air. But with drones already the primary weapon on an expanding battlefield, both sides have tens of thousands of pilots ready and willing to learn. The question now is whether fibre optic drones become even more important. Dmytro estimates that about a tenth of the workshop's drone output consists of fibre optic drones, in line with estimates from analysts such as Bendett. This week, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, discussed the drones with his senior military commanders in Ukraine's general staff. 'Since the beginning of this year, more than 20 new certified drone models with fibre optic control systems have emerged. Eleven of our Ukrainian enterprises have already mastered the production of such drones,' Zelenskyy said, promising to ramp up production as soon as possible. Unlike the early days of the war, drone supply of all types to the military is increasingly dominated by the Ukrainian state, not donations. A week earlier, Ukraine's chief military commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported that '77,000 enemy targets' were engaged and destroyed by drones of all types. On fibre optic drones in particular, the general confirmed that Ukraine was deploying craft with 'a kill range of 20km' underlining how far the battlefield has become extended beyond the traditional idea of frontline trenches. On Saturday night, about half a dozen drones, almost certainly Ukrainian, hit a Russian fibre optic factory in Saransk, about 400 miles from the border. A long range drone targeted it again the next day. The Optic Fibre Systems site was described by Baza, a Russian Telegram channel with links to the security services, as the only fibre optic plant in the country, though the level of the damage caused remains unclear. There are examples of drone operators from earlier this year being able to trace the cables back to the positions from where they were launched and target the enemy crews. But if this technique was a successful one, fibre optic drones would have disappeared as soon as they appeared on the battlefield, when – from presidents to workshops – all the talk is of increasing numbers. Other means of countering fibre optic drones are emerging. At the simplest level, the increasingly prevalent netting is designed to entangle the drone and its cables. Ukraine is also seeking to devise ways to sever or burn the cables. 'That is the question everybody asks, if it's possible to destroy the cable,' Fedorenko says. 'I will tell you it's very strong, but we are working on it.'
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- The Guardian
‘They cannot be jammed': fibre optic drones pose new threat in Ukraine
On the battlefields of Ukraine, new sights emerge. Thread-like filaments of wire, extended across open fields. Netting rigged up between trees along key supply roads. Both are responses to a hard-to-detect weapon able to sneak into spaces previously thought safe, hi tech and low tech all at once. At a secret workshop in Ukraine's north-east, where about 20 people assemble hundreds of FPV (first person view) drones, there is a new design. Under the frame of the familiar quadcopter is a cylinder, the size of a forearm. Coiled up inside is fibre optic cable, 10km (6 miles) or even 20km long, to create a wired kamikaze drone. Capt Yuriy Fedorenko, the commander of a specialist drone unit, the Achilles regiment, says fibre optic drones were an experimental response to battlefield jamming and rapidly took off late last year. With no radio connection, they cannot be jammed, are difficult to detect and able to fly in ways conventional FPV drones cannot. 'If pilots are experienced, they can fly these drones very low and between the trees in a forest or tree line. If you are flying with a regular drone, the trees block the signal unless you have a re-transmitter close,' he observes. Where tree lined supply roads were thought safer, fibre optic drones have been able to get through. A video from a Russian military Telegram channel from last month demonstrates their ominous capability. A fibre optic drone, the nose of the yellow cylinder housing the coil clearly visible, flies with precision a few centimetres from the ground, to strike a Ukrainian howitzer concealed in a barn, a location clearly previously considered safe. Soldiers have quickly come to fear them. Oleksii, a combat medic, working in Pokrovsk, the busiest front in Ukraine's east, says daytime evacuations of the wounded, already very difficult, have become impossible. 'It's just not happening now there are fibre optic drones. They cannot be jammed and for now they are the main concern for the guys on the frontline,' he said. But as Fedorenko acknowledges, it is Russia that, at least for now, 'is well ahead of us' – largely because Moscow has had greater access to fibre optic cabling, with Ukraine scrambling to catch up. Fibre optic drones were heavily used in Russia's counterattack in Kursk and experts believe they were an element in Moscow's success in largely rolling up Ukraine's salient in March. Experts estimate that drones of all types now contribute to about 70% to 80% of military casualties on both sides. As for fibre optic craft, Samuel Bendett, a drone expert with the Center for Naval Analyses, said they appear to be proving useful at the start of an assault, in an environment where cheap remotely piloted vehicles are increasingly taking the place of artillery. 'Since these drones cannot be jammed by electronic warfare, they're used as a first wave of attack to target adversarial electronic warfare and jamming capability. That then clears the way for regular radio-controlled FPV drones to strike,' he said. Because they are wired, they also deliver high quality images of the target – useful for battlefield intelligence – 'up until the last second of the strike'. At the urban workshop, part of the Achilles regiment, Dmytro, gives a tour. A conventional FPV drone can cost $400 (£302), excluding the price of its explosive payload, but the cable adds the same amount again. There are complications with the equipment, the cabling is sensitive to damage and its connector to contamination with dust – but the biggest problem is retraining drone pilots. 'I think each operator [pilot] will have five or six failed missions [in training],' Dmytro says because the craft handles differently. Ten kilometres of fibre optic cable weighs approximately 1.2 to 1.4kg, inevitably transforming how the drone flies through the air. But with drones already the primary weapon on an expanding battlefield, both sides have tens of thousands of pilots ready and willing to learn. The question now is whether fibre optic drones become even more important. Dmytro estimates that about a tenth of the workshop's drone output consists of fibre optic drones, in line with estimates from analysts such as Bendett. This week, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, discussed the drones with his senior military commanders in Ukraine's general staff. 'Since the beginning of this year, more than 20 new certified drone models with fibre optic control systems have emerged. Eleven of our Ukrainian enterprises have already mastered the production of such drones,' Zelenskyy said, promising to ramp up production as soon as possible. Unlike the early days of the war, drone supply of all types to the military is increasingly dominated by the Ukrainian state, not donations. A week earlier, Ukraine's chief military commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported that '77,000 enemy targets' were engaged and destroyed by drones of all types. On fibre optic drones in particular, the general confirmed that Ukraine was deploying craft with 'a kill range of 20km' underlining how far the battlefield has become extended beyond the traditional idea of frontline trenches. On Saturday night, about half a dozen drones, almost certainly Ukrainian, hit a Russian fibre optic factory in Saransk, about 400 miles from the border. A long range drone targeted it again the next day. The Optic Fibre Systems site was described by Baza, a Russian Telegram channel with links to the security services, as the only fibre optic plant in the country, though the level of the damage caused remains unclear. There are examples of drone operators from earlier this year being able to trace the cables back to the positions from where they were launched and target the enemy crews. But if this technique was a successful one, fibre optic drones would have disappeared as soon as they appeared on the battlefield, when – from presidents to workshops – all the talk is of increasing numbers. Other means of countering fibre optic drones are emerging. At the simplest level, the increasingly prevalent netting is designed to entangle the drone and its cables. Ukraine is also seeking to devise ways to sever or burn the cables. 'That is the question everybody asks, if it's possible to destroy the cable,' Fedorenko says. 'I will tell you it's very strong, but we are working on it.'
