[Goose]

Back to the electronic warfare topic, both Russia and Ukraine are now deploying drones controlled through fiber optic threads rather than jammable radio frequencies.

https://www.spotterglobal.com/es_AR/blog...ct-them-12

What is old is new again. Same technology as "wire-guided" torpedoes. For quite some years these "wires" have been fiber optics. The same patent covers missiles. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2107332A1/en. In water of course, electromagnetic waves are not an option. These "tethered" (albeit by a very long tether) have the advantage that they can't be jammed and their video can't be intercepted by the enemy. They have several disadvantages however. The article lists some of them.

It is necessary to realize that the idea of having a very long spool of fiber optic cable at the launch site that the drone unrolls doesn't work. The spool has to be on the drone. That is an unavoidable weight penalty that limits the range of the drone. There is also a real problem with drone maneuverability and speed. The drone can only go as fast as the cable can unwind. At high speeds this is tricky. It is "doable" but requires very good manufacturing techniques on the spool. Just rolling them by hand isn't going to work for a high-performance drone :-).

Second, the drone will have trouble maneuvering because the cable unspooling  has to change direction as well. This often leads to the cable getting "hung up" and jammed in the unspooling gear. There is another very important point the article does not mention. Fiber optic cables are very strong and quite resistant to force along their "long" axis. However, they shatter very easily when their minimum bend radius is not honored. Those of you that have a fiber optic internet may wonder why those rather large boxes are used for the junctions in your cable. This is the reason. AT&T wants a 4 inch bend radius. This situation can easily be violated if the drone turns 90 degrees and the cable gets caught in a twig or similar. Imagine it flying a grid search. It will be fine as long as there are no sharp turns!

[Goose]

Back to the electronic warfare topic, both Russia and Ukraine are now deploying drones controlled through fiber optic threads rather than jammable radio frequencies.

https://www.spotterglobal.com/es_AR/blog...ct-them-12

What is old is new again. Same technology as "wire-guided" torpedoes. For quite some years these "wires" have been fiber optics. The same patent covers missiles. https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2107332A1/en. In water of course, electromagnetic waves are not an option. These "tethered" (albeit by a very long tether) have the advantage that they can't be jammed and their video can't be intercepted by the enemy. They have several disadvantages however. The article lists some of them.

It is necessary to realize that the idea of having a very long spool of fiber optic cable at the launch site that the drone unrolls doesn't work. The spool has to be on the drone. That is an unavoidable weight penalty that limits the range of the drone. There is also a real problem with drone maneuverability and speed. The drone can only go as fast as the cable can unwind. At high speeds this is tricky. It is "doable" but requires very good manufacturing techniques on the spool. Just rolling them by hand isn't going to work for a high-performance drone :-).

Second, the drone will have trouble maneuvering because the cable unspooling  has to change direction as well. This often leads to the cable getting "hung up" and jammed in the unspooling gear. There is another very important point the article does not mention. Fiber optic cables are very strong and quite resistant to force along their "long" axis. However, they shatter very easily when their minimum bend radius is not honored. Those of you that have a fiber optic internet may wonder why those rather large boxes are used for the junctions in your cable. This is the reason. AT&T wants a 4 inch bend radius. This situation can easily be violated if the drone turns 90 degrees and the cable gets caught in a twig or similar. Imagine it flying a grid search. It will be fine as long as there are no sharp turns!