this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
348 points (98.1% liked)

World News

46046 readers
3936 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] febra@lemmy.world -5 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

Knowing how fragile fibre cable is especially when bent at weird angles (which is prone to happen in flight), this doesn't sound like the most genius idea. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It has been in use for a few months already and has proven to be very reliant. Force upon the cable seems to unroll the spool before breaking the cable.

And there's even more fun stuff. Ukrainian drones are currently playing around with visual target locking in case of signal loss. It works very well for tank mounted scramblers.

[–] febra@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

That's actually cool to know. Thanks for the info

[–] sepi@piefed.social 17 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

There are some turning radius limitations but otherwise these drones are doing just fine from both sides. We don't have to wait and see anything.

Madyar has been running these for a while and it looks like Code 9.2 Achilles also.

[–] 3laws@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

Its not brand new stuff. It works, no need to wait and see at all.

[–] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 4 points 15 hours ago

If it was that bad, they wouldn't be using it. Consider that the same is true for regular munitions. They're meant to be disposable, so if they have a few duds, it's probably not the end of the world.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Fibre cable is a lot stronger and more flexible than you'd think. The old days of very fragile cable are gone. You can use it and treat it in pretty much the same way you'd treat copper CAT6 cable in terms of bend radius.