Ukraine, NATO eye tech trials for intercepting Russia’s cabled drones

MILAN — NATO and Ukrainian officials are slated to stage a trial of unmanned aerial vehicle technologies aimed at addressing a dogged threat: Russian first-person-view drones with fiber-optic cables that cannot be brought down with electronic interference.

An event organized by the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Center and NATO’s Allied Command Transformation will be held on June 20 in Tallinn, Estonia, to demonstrate new countermeasures that have been percolating among defense firms.

The envisioned countermeasures are required to have a detection range of at least 500 meters, be able to operate during the day and at night, weigh under 100 kilograms, and not exceed an overall cost of $100,000.

FPV drones operating via fiber-optic cables are a new military challenge globally, as they are largely immune to jamming and interception attempts. These cheap and small weapons relay signals through a thin cable, which makes them resistant to eletro-magnetic interference.

Drones were a key part of Ukraine’s largest long-range attack since the onset of the war carried out on June 1, where the smuggled weapons were used to target and strike Russian warplanes and strategic sites.

The appearance of command-wire drones has opened yet another chapter in the cat-and-mouse game of innovations and countermeasures in drone warfare on both sides, said Federico Borsari, resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

“From a technical standpoint, Russia and Ukraine are now trying to push the limits of the usual tradeoff between range, speed, payload and endurance by introducing more powerful batteries to increase their capabilities and longer fiber-optic spools,” he said.

He added that longer cables are useful in carrying out attacks and ambush tactics against enemy logistics where the FPVs lie dormant near roads and are activated by an operator when a convoy passes nearby.

Ukrainian troops have so far favored an FPV-tracking tactic by spotting the reflective fibers spooling out behind the drones, which were easiest to find in bright sunlight, and then tracing them back to Russian operators.

In one documented instance, one of the drone units of the Ukrainian National Guard Kara Dag Brigade struck a Russian base during the winter months by following a maze of fibre optics back to the hideout.

However, as the use of fiber-optic FPVs has exploded, old cables are now littering parts of the battlefield, creating mazes that are almost impossible trace to their launch points.

Borsari said Ukraine has also experimented with active countermeasures, including using drone interceptors and quadcopters to destroy FPVs mid-flight or when they are on the ground by dropping small bomblets on them.

“Currently, the best defense relies on a combination of passive and active countermeasures and should also incorporate robust signal intelligence and other forms of intel-gathering techniques to intercept Russian communications and locate their drone teams,” he said.

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo was a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.

米兰——北约和乌克兰官员计划进行无人机技术试验，旨在应对一个顽固的威胁：俄罗斯的第一人称视角无人机配备光纤电缆，无法通过电子干扰将其击落。

由北约-乌克兰联合分析、训练和教育中心以及北约盟军转型司令部组织的一项活动将于 6 月 20 日在爱沙尼亚塔林举行，旨在展示国防企业中正在酝酿的新反制措施。

设想中的反制措施需要具备至少 500 米的探测范围，能够在白天和夜间运行，重量低于 100 公斤，总成本不超过 10 万美元。

利用光纤电缆运行的第一视角（FPV）无人机给全球军事界带来了新的挑战，因为它们几乎不受干扰和拦截的影响。这些廉价的小型武器通过细电缆传输信号，使其能够抵抗电磁干扰。

无人机是乌克兰自战争爆发以来规模最大的远程攻击行动的关键组成部分，该行动于 6 月 1 日展开，走私武器被用来瞄准和打击俄罗斯战机和战略目标。

欧洲政策分析中心常驻研究员费德里科·博尔萨里表示，遥控无人机的出现，为双方在无人机战争中创新和反制措施的猫鼠游戏开启了新的篇章。

他说：“从技术角度来看，俄罗斯和乌克兰现在正试图通过引入更强大的电池来提高其性能，并采用更长的光纤卷轴，从而突破航程、速度、有效载荷和续航时间之间通常的权衡极限。”

他还补充说，更长的电缆有助于对敌方后勤进行攻击和伏击战术，FPV 可以静静地停放在道路附近，当车队经过附近时，操作员会将其激活。

到目前为止，乌克兰军队一直倾向于使用 FPV 跟踪战术，通过发现无人机后面伸出的反光纤维（在明亮的阳光下最容易发现），然后追踪到俄罗斯操作员。

有记录的一个例子是，乌克兰国民警卫队卡拉达格旅的一个无人机部队在冬季几个月里，沿着错综复杂的光纤网络追踪到俄罗斯基地的藏身处，并对其进行了袭击。

然而，随着光纤 FPV 的使用激增，旧电缆现在散落在战场上的各个角落，形成了几乎不可能追溯到发射点的迷宫。

博尔萨里表示，乌克兰也曾试验过主动反制措施，包括使用无人机拦截器和四旋翼飞行器，通过向飞行中的 FPV 无人机投掷小型炸弹，或者在 FPV 无人机落地后将其摧毁。

他说：“目前，最好的防御措施是被动和主动对抗措施相结合，还应包括强大的信号情报和其他形式的情报收集技术，以拦截俄罗斯的通信并定位其无人机队。”

伊丽莎白·戈斯林-马洛曾任《防务新闻》欧洲通讯员。她的报道涵盖军事采购和国际安全等广泛领域，尤其擅长航空领域的报道。她常驻意大利米兰。