- 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.
Much better than those visible radio waves.
Invisible weapons are all the rage these days.
Have I got a box of invisible rocket launchers to sell you.
Damn. We gotta close the missile gap eith the six-year-olds.
You overestimate the education of the average person
“invisible radio wave”
Whed have radio waves not been invisible to the naked eye?
In the beta test of Earth. Luckily they realised how much that fucks with us and reverted the change.
this makes me nostalgic for r/outside.
What? You don’t have Doppler vision? Pffff.
I think it was just emphasizing that it’s an invisible weapon, not quantifying.
I hope you know them all, man
Oh, you didn’t have to edit your comment. I was joking and didn’t meant to shame you. It’s good for building vocab for us ESLs so I did appreciate it.
I just edited it to fix a typo (emohasizing)
Light is also an electromagnetic wave, just like radio
I am assuming undetectable waves. That is the enemy won’t know where the waves are being fired from or even that they are being fired at all.
It uses high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction.
At a range of 1km…
That‘s useful not just for drones. I wonder if this works against helicopters, too.
It sounds like it’s a directed microwave cooker. Works on people too, just not ones behind good cover.
Edit: ah, high frequency, my bad, it’s a gamma gun. Same principles apply I think, give or take the cover.
They are definitely not blasting gamma rays to bring down drones lol. “radio” is a specific range of frequencies so “high frequency radio” is just frequencies at the higher end of that specific range.
Gamma rays are insanely dangerous. I’m too lazy to do calculations/research to back this up but I suspect that gamma rays intense enough to reliably drop a drone would also give cancer/radiation poisoning to anyone remotely downrange (and also the operators). Furthermore, I don’t think we have a way to produce gamma rays in any high intensity in the lab. matter-antimatter annihilation and fusion bombs are the only way I know of for humans to produce gamma rays. The former can only be done at atomic scale in the lab and the latter is, well, I guess that also destroys drones (and everything else within 100km)
High frequency radio is still below the visible part of the spectrum, gamma is waaay above it.
Tech Ingredients YT channel made a diy microwave directed energy device to disrupt consumer drones.
More like: That could be useful, just not for (perhaps many) drones.
1km isn’t that far - the drones that were used for surveillance of Minneapolis protests in 2020 were around 6km up.
If they needed to get close for some reason, would a 1km deterrent be countered enough by approaching from directly above and using gravity for the last km?
The drones used in Ukraine are basically just commercial drones with grenades strapped to them. And a 1 km distance they’re unlikely to be able to damage a target even if they detonated.
Seriously this! People don’t understand that even hobby drones at a certain price point have robust rf shielding.
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
Judging by the picture I’m sure it is
Why does that title sound like it’s out of a 1940’s war reel?
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
UK slams dozens of drones with invisible radio waves
UK blasts rays of DEATH to doomed drones
I wager the word “radio” also helps. Early 1900s would have had plenty of radio broadcasts being “the thing” going on, so that word probably helps prime the interpretation, even if not used in quite the same way.
Nice honkers
So when can we start shipping them to Ukraine? Even from a selfish perspective its a perfect environment to field test this.
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.
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.
I would imagine that a demonstration unit has already been sent
The UK made an invisible weapon?
They won the Battle of Britain with invisible military tech they invented, so it’s not that surprising.
That be radar or the bombe’s?
This is massive. Hope the detail leak so we can use this in the revolution.
Step 1: take the magnetron out of a microwave oven
Step 2: …
UK tech is always invented by weirdo boffins in a shed so they already told everyone in the local how it works.
I wondered how long it would take for them to figure this out. Or simply take control of the drones.
Now we need to figure out a handheld consumer version.
Well, you might be able to do it. But you might not want to be holding it in YOUR hand when you turn it on. :P
Or in the near presence of the FCC or similar agency
No, it’s fine. I heard they were getting defunded.
Check the Tech Ingredients YT channel.
Can we get the waves to produce “Hootie and the Blowfish: I only wanna be with you”? That would be quite epic.
These can only do “Hold My Hand”
Everyones got this… It was obvious
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
They’ll just use EMP tech to harden drones against this
Which will raise weight, costs, and reduce functionality. It’s like a U lock for a bicycle it’s not impenetrable it just raises the bar
Wrap it in a bit of aluminum foil
If you block the radio waves then isn’t that accomplishing the same thing as overloading it with radio waves?
maybethatsthejokeidk.jpg (unless…?)
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
Ah. OK. That’s nicer. Makes sense in the time of consumer hardware dominating frontlines.
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
