Question:
Can you explain how aircraft-type drones flying deep into the defense recognize targets? It’s unlikely they have powerful computers and U.S. maps on board. And if they are GPS guided, how expensive is the spoofing equipment to equip every critical explosive site with it, or to organize a continuous spoofing border somewhere? I have seen at work all sorts of wire fences from drones, but they are ineffective in case of a large area of the protected object.
The route of each long-range drone is conditionally divided into two parts.
- Flight along the laid route with the help of the device, which is usually for simplicity called autopilot (inertial control system, and in past decades – gyrocompass), to the area of the object of attack. Accuracy is low, an error of a few kilometers is not significant.
2- Orientation on the spot in a given area, search for the object, laying an accurate route in the last section and attack. To offshore uncrewed boats all this applies equally.
The first part of the route does not even need constant correction, but from time to time at special control points it is necessary to do it, so as not to go too far off the route. Usually a satellite navigation chip is used for this purpose: it is impossible to cover the entire intended route with spoofing instruments – its variants are infinite. It is a long flight on social network maps using the simplest navigation chips. A special circumstance is that in order to minimize the distance at which air defense radars can detect the aircraft, the flight usually takes place at a very low altitude, and this must be taken into account.
Until now, a significant part of drones use satellite navigation for the entire route. But due to the distortion of the satellite signal, these are more often false targets. The flight pattern of strike UAVs today is different.
In the second phase, a UAV with visual control is usually controlled by an operator. There are reports from the field about the control of the vehicles by agents who take them under control already in the target area. For this purpose, local SIM cards (if there is very good communication quality in the area) and Starlink terminals are used. If mobile networks can theoretically be turned off or jam the signal at specific towers for the duration of the attack (although in reality this has never been reported), the space Internet guarantees the operator reliable communication and video quality. No GPS is needed for this.
Today, both sides are working on low-cost artificial intelligence systems that will analyze images and find a target on their own without an operator at the end site. Such algorithms have been used in smart weapons for more than half a century. The main task is to create a very cheap and simple system that will not dramatically increase the cost.
