Owl vs. drone: An unexpected twist in Ukraine conflict
The war in Ukraine is full of surprising situations, and one of these is the downing of a Russian FPV drone by a common owl. We delve into the details of drone usage by both the Russians and Ukrainians.
Drones have become an integral part of the modern battlefield in Ukraine. They are a significant source of losses, next to artillery, even though their effectiveness is estimated at less than 50% due to the now common electronic warfare systems. Another form of defence includes, for instance, smoothbore shotguns, but there are also unique cases.
In the video below, you can see a Russian FPV drone with a thermal camera being attacked by a common owl, which apparently mistook it for a bat that is part of its diet. The owl's attack, likely taking place somewhere in the Donetsk region on a Russian drone, has a symbolic aspect beyond its humorous side. The owl is a symbol of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), and the bat represents Russian military intelligence (GRU).
Drone war in Ukraine — autonomous and wired solutions are the future
Of course, there are still instances of drone attacks on jammers if the control signal used is outside their operating range. However, these are becoming rare, and for months both Ukrainians and, to a greater extent, Russians, who have more problems with the supply of drones, are trying to develop solutions immune to electronic warfare systems.
One of the paths towards this goal is developing drones that attack fully autonomously the target chosen by the pilot. Currently, Ukrainians are successfully testing drones equipped with systems that allow the use of artificial intelligence algorithms for so-called "machine vision". However, this is a costly option and difficult to implement on a wide scale in the short term.
The second option, providing a similar effect but with a limited range of about 10 kilometres, is maintaining communication between the drone and the control station with a fibre optic cable. This is a cheap and well-known method used in, for example, anti-tank guided missiles, and is now being massively implemented for use with FPV drones.
