- 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.
Also known as “light”, as used in Lasers, which also works to knock down drones.
Radio waves are a specific wavelength/band of the EM spectrum. Light is not radio waves, just as radiowaves aren’t light. Microwaves are another specific wavelength.
They’re both electromagnetic waves.
Look around the space you’re in and notice that you can’t “see” the light, only the things.
You don’t see the things, you see the light reflecting off of them
Don’t look into the laser with remaining eye.
That’s not what the word “see” means.
Ah yes, that’s famously why screens literally build tiny versions of the world inside them. We don’t see the light, we see the objects!
The light that enters your eye carries enormous amounts of information with it. Your eye and a small portion of your brain comprise a highly specific tool for extracting a small subset of that information and processing it. The information you use is only related to the last object the light interacted with, not the light itself (with the small exception being the “brightness” - that has nothing to do with the object).
No one claims to hear the air in their ears rather than the violin that is being played nearby. That’s just not what the word “hear” means.
The information you use is only related to the last object the light interacted with, not the light itself (with the small exception being the “brightness” - that has nothing to do with the object).
This is obviously false, otherwise all objects would look the same under any color of light - yet they don’t. This example actually shows that it is only the light itself that matters, because it has the information of the objects it interacted with during its lifetime!
No one claims to hear the air in their ears rather than the violin that is being played nearby. That’s just not what the word “hear” means.
But everyone would agree that we’re hearing the sound waves produced by the violin. Again, a great example counter to your point, as the equivalent to a sound wave is the photon.
It is literally activating the rods and cones based on photons hitting them. Do you think we don’t smell smells either?
The word “see” predates any concept of rods or cones or photons by thousands of years. It has nothing to do with those things.
What are you completely making up?
Put your eye in the beam and tell me that again…
Imagine if they showed real physics in sci-fi movies. You’d never see any laser blasts in space, just the result of their strike.
You sure can see plasma cannons though…
Infrared lasers aren’t visible. They’re still higher frequency than radio waves. To say that visible light is visible radio is to say that the sky is green, just that it’s predominantly blue coloured green.
Lasers are more useful in surveillance and navigation and guidance and precision work in production, for a weapon they are, most of the time, out of place. Expensive, unreliable and weak.
Invisible weapons are all the rage these days.
You overestimate the education of the average person
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.
High frequency radio is still below the visible part of the spectrum, gamma is waaay above it.
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
Nice honkers
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.
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
I wondered how long it would take for them to figure this out. Or simply take control of the drones.
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: …
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.
Basically, EMP but directed.
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
