Civilian drone enthusiasts are contributing to the Ukrainian war effort by filming Russian troops and reporting their movements.
Video / AP
OPINION:
Technology has been a key ally for Ukraine in its fight against the monstrous Russian invaders whose Soviet-style gear has been shown up as surprisingly vulnerable to new attack weapons that don't cost millions.
Drones in particular seem to have given Ukraine's armed forces the upper hand.
They areof course nothing new.
The United States, for example, has deployed Predator drones in multiple wars since the mid-90s, creating the verb "to be droned" by Hellfire missiles. The Brits are thinking of having mixed or fully drone-equipped aircraft carriers, and the Australians want to drop US$2 billion (NZ$3.1b) submarine equivalents called extra large autonomous underwater vehicles (XLAUVs).
Said XLAUVs are going to be made by Oculus Rift founder Peter Luckey's Anduril, presumably not as virtual reality weapons but actual sub-drones that will give the Chinese in the Solomons a fright.
That's fancy and expensive Big Army gear though. Even the famed tank killers, the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone systems are believed to cost US$5 million a piece, require training and complex and lengthy arms deal negotiations.
Ukraine is buying Bayraktar drones, but its armed forces are also being creative with cheap, off-the-shelf drones.
There's lots of drone footage from the Ukraine war, showing rocket and artillery systems exploding and tanks popping their turrets after being hit by munitions that in some cases comprise old Soviet-era mortars modified to accurately land where the remote pilots intend them to strike.
A recent news report showed a drone assembly centre, with small lightweight devices with polystyrene fuselage being adapted for military use. A wild drone idea from Ukraine uses a drum magazine developed for a large European brewery. Instead of dropping beer bottles on people's heads, you load up the drum with high-explosive finned munition.
It's familiar gear: one was a Parrot Bebop 2 quadcopter which must be six or seven years old now.
A Ukrainian soldier with the Aerorozvidka (aerial reconnaissance) unit launches a cheap commercial drone. Photo / Supplied
That drone is probably still good for reconnoitring enemy positions, to direct artillery fire on them even though the battery life on the Bebop 2 is a bit meh. You realise that field chargers are now a must-have kit in modern wars.
Small commercial drones that fly high up are impossible to spot and most of the time, can't be heard from the ground. At the same time, their hi-def cameras can see you even in dim light, especially if they have thermal imagers like DJI drones.
Auckland police need something along the same small-budget drone lines so they can stop using that noisy helicopter that wakes people up during the small hours.
Deadly drones, done dirt cheap, are also being built by rebels in Burma. They're big machines that can carry large payloads to stick up the junta that's responsible for huge amounts of war crimes.
There are countermeasures, including laser-equipped vehicles and drone killer guns that can emit high-energy pulses to disable the flying devices.
They're all massive, however, because of the high energy needs, and look like they'd make soldiers trying to use them sitting ducks.
Besides, once ornithopters that fly like birds with artificial muscles become commonplace, troops will be surprised when what seems like a flapping angry goose drops not guano but high explosives on them.
The Dutch police tried training eagles (no, really; they did) to pluck drones out of the skies, but stopped after the birds of prey were found to be disobedient. Good on the eagles. Animals are better off staying away from human wars.
Add artificial intelligence and machine learning to the mix, with image and audio recognition, accurate mapping and which will enable highly mobile autonomous drone swarms, and there's a sci-fi war that most of us would rather not be in.
The technology to do it is mostly ready, and organisations such as the International Committee for Robot Arms Control will have its work cut out for them.
