> Realistically, I doubt there’s ANY system out there will be able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown manually let alone with AI, you might have some workarounds, but never a real counter.
Weaponized drones (say D_A) can be countered by other weaponized drones (say D_B), equally cheap or cheaper than D_A because the D_A is usually targeting something larger (so more payload) and typically has a longer range. D_B only needs to wreck D_A at a shorter defensive range. That's what Ukraine is doing.
You can also use drone swarms with coordinated action so that each drone in the swarm is only targeting one other drone, and automatic re-targeting if one node misses. [1]
hardest issue as I mentioned in another comment is detection. Now on using other drones to counter a drone, there are other issues, as I built and tested some before, assuming you got the detection part done. The first one is guidance and correction mid-air, flying manually won’t really be practical due to the need for an extraordinary flying skills, which can’t be relied on in the field, the second part is the speed, you need to ALWAYS make sure the interceptor is faster to catch it up, third is the weight, I disagree about the payload part you mentioned, I have seen videos of light weight drones failing to wreck bigger ones, if you are relying on collision alone. Additionally, the telemetry/video/C&C for the interceptor, if jamming is already in place, your counter won’t work either.
The swarm will require a low latency comms link, centralized or decentralized, if the area is jammed, it won’t work. i have built a self-healing decentralized system using cellular in each drone, but that’s useless if the network is down to start with.
So they might work in a very specific use case, but not an ultimate solution to counter them.
While it [1] doesn't talk about swarms, it has some details - $1k - $2.5k price, 170mph speed, backpackable, thermal imaging, radar, ai, manual control (fiber-optic I think, based on other sources and battlefield pictures).
This [2] talks about swarmer software used by Ukraine.
$1k-$2.5k gives a lot of room for tech to avoid jamming - ir or visible light, ultrasound, for in-swarm comms.
And I wonder if the battery itself could be weaponized. We have seen that a very thin layer of the right material can turn phones/pagers very destructive.
> I doubt it, as D_A's target is stationary (and could be reduced to GPS coords) while D_B's target is moving.
It's a good point, though I should point out that GPS denial is assumed in those sort of contexts as a first countermeasure so D_A likely has alternative targeting, and that smaller drones can move faster with less energy storage, which itself requires less weight, compounding the benefits of being smaller.
D_A only needs to get to coordinates (X, Y) with a minimal requirements for Z as "some meters above ground." It doesn't matter if it gets there in 15 minutes or in 20 minutes, or in 2 hours.
D_B needs to absolutely nail X, Y, Z -- but also t!
To be at the time t0 at the point (X0, Y0, Z0), the defence drone needs to be at some other point (X1, Y1, Z1) at the time t1 -- given the speed and the direction of the attack drone. But what the defence drone has is just an estimation of these. The amount of back-propagation calculations for the defence drone is simply immense.
And also the attacker can send 100 drones without any real targeting at all and 10 proper expensive drones and you need to send up 110 defenders which need to be able to track flying drones. Being the attacker will always be easier.
He wasn't wrong in that claim: for the most part the bombers did get through, especially at night. The problem was that their effectiveness once "through" was far lower than the bombing proponents had claimed, due in particular to the lack of precision, but also the resilience of both targets and the enemy population.
Weaponized drones (say D_A) can be countered by other weaponized drones (say D_B), equally cheap or cheaper than D_A because the D_A is usually targeting something larger (so more payload) and typically has a longer range. D_B only needs to wreck D_A at a shorter defensive range. That's what Ukraine is doing.
You can also use drone swarms with coordinated action so that each drone in the swarm is only targeting one other drone, and automatic re-targeting if one node misses. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics