The continued and extremely effective innovation in deploying what at their origin are consumer and enterprise drone technologies – notably first-person view craft (FPV) – have been essential to Ukraine’s defense against the larger and better equipped invading Russian Army. Now it appears technicians in Kyiv have again attained an aerial advantage by flying swarms of UAVs overseen by a craft acting as a kind of “queen” bee in those operations.
Reports about Ukraine forces using repeater drones to extend and strengthen aerial communication capabilities have been circulating since December. But on Friday, the @WarTranslated information project posted a video in which a Russian soldier claims to have seen one of those UAVs in operation acting as a “queen” to a swarm of FPV strike craft.
What the soldier appears to describe is the following.
A large, possibly fixed-wing drone carrying specialized communication payload apparently relays images to a pilot overseeing the overall swarm strike operation. That main feed provides reconnaissance information on Russian positions on the ground. Ukraine operators of what might be called “worker bee” FPV craft then attack using that situational awareness information, with the “queen” serving as a signal relay station and amplifier.
“They’re sending a large wing (drone) with a repeater, which broadcasts the signal,” the soldier said in the post by @WarTranslated, which renders information from various languages on the Ukraine-Russia conflict into English. “Underneath is a flock of FPV drones, a flock of around 10 drones. The queen is somewhere above at a high altitude, in (short) detection range. It brings the flock of drones, which then descend into positions and start working.”
That “work “has been credited in several media accounts quoting defense experts as a major reason why recent Russian counter-offensives have largely gone nowhere.
Ukraine’s use of roaming “queen” repeater drones to monitor those troop movements and react to them with FPV swarm attacks, those accounts say, have resulted in invading forces being taken out almost as soon as they come out in the open.
Imaging physicist @DanielR – whose insightful analyses of visual and other information out of Ukraine have made him a repeated source in media reporting – noted the significance of the @WarTranslated video, which was originally attributed to the Russian daily Izvestia.
Not only is the method now enabling reportedly effective coordinated FPV drone strikes. It also reflects a level of sophistication in Ukraine’s innovation and improvement of aerial communications tech that spells even more bad news for Russian ground troops being regularly battered from above.
“The important point here is that (apparently) a single repeater is used to relay signals for multiple drones,” @DanielR responded. “This requires multiple receivers & transmitters mounted on the repeater aircraft. Ten radios is a lot for one aircraft to carry but a large fixed-wing would work…. Mostly what we see in Ukraine is both sides using low-cost (mostly hobby grade) hardware even for repeaters. The easiest and fastest solution to accomplish this ‘flock’ is to stack more cheap radios into the repeater. (Work with the evidence, not how we think it should be done.)”
Image: Benedikt Zinn/Unslpash
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