British soldiers take down drone swarm in groundbreaking use of radio wave weapon
www.gov.uk
British soldiers have successfully tracked, targeted and defeated swarms of drones in the latest trial of a new directed energy weapon developed in the UK.
  • 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.
  • @[email protected]English
    2•3 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]English
      12•3 months ago

      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.