• UK-made, invisible radio wave weapon knocks out drone swarms for the first time.
  • Weapon has potential to help protect against drone threats as nature of warfare changes.
  • Zacryon@lemmy.wtf
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    3 days ago

    “invisible radio wave”

    Whed have radio waves not been invisible to the naked eye?

  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    So when can we start shipping them to Ukraine? Even from a selfish perspective its a perfect environment to field test this.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      Warzone’s always the best environment to test new battlefield systems.

      Look at the difference in technology between the beginning of the first world war and the end. We started off with essentially standing in fields shooting each other over distances you could spit, and ended up with tanks. The second world war gave us nukes.

      Will probably have AGI battle droids by the end of this war.

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Nah, interesting point from Issac Arthur that the dumbest AI always wins assuming both are complex enough to do the job, the dumb one will have less processing delay to make each decision.

    • scholar@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      This isn’t just jamming signals, it’s microwaving the electronics from a kilometer away so it will work against fibre optic controlled drones as well

  • arrakark@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Anybody know if it has a phased array antenna? a) those are cool b) they can aim much faster than an antenna that needs to physically pivot

    • Rogue@feddit.uk
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      4 days ago

      Possibly because it’s presented how news used to be - a simple statement of fact without embellishment or click bait.

      Would you rather:

      You won’t BELIEVE how this weapon built by British boffins can yeet hundreds of Russian drones from the sky in seconds

  • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    I wondered how long it would take for them to figure this out. Or simply take control of the drones.

  • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Can we get the waves to produce “Hootie and the Blowfish: I only wanna be with you”? That would be quite epic.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    How is knocking out drone swarms different from knocking out any other communications?

    I swear, such news are reminiscent of the notorious tech illiteracy in “Wraith Squadron” books from Star Wars EU. With that Bothan being, ya knaw, able to just check all of one planet’s communications from the orbit after arriving there. The author (not to insult him) didn’t even consider how preposterous it would be on our planet, which doesn’t know hyperspace travel and other SW-grade tech yet, to be able to process that amount of information, no “hacking” parts even being discussed.

    Which is even worse when pre-Wraith parts of the series are pretty sane and Corran as a character knows what he’s doing.

    Of course protocols used in such applications have DoS vulnerabilities that can be found and used. And a lot of existing equipment can be employed in that too. Just - why does the headline read so stupid.

    • Womble@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      As per the article:

      It uses high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction.

      Its not jamming the comms, its inducing currents inside the electronics of the drone to fry them.

    • snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      They’ve been using wire guided drones in Ukraine lately so directly damaging the drones is useful in cases where you’re not going to be jamming them

  • ladfrombrad 🇬🇧@lemdro.id
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    4 days ago

    The project supports more than 135 highly skilled jobs across the UK

    Is that 135 individual positions, or just some mumbo jumbo job titles they’re making up?

    The UK police can’t determine what is a legal 249gm drone or not as seen many times over with the auditors, so how on earth is this thing gonna work is beyond me?

    Just trash the airwaves I guess.