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Ukraine: 'A drone worth 100 euros can destroy an 8 million tank'

A Ukrainian soldier carrying a drone near the town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region near the combat zone, February 17, 2023. AP - LIBKOS

Text by: Clea Broadhurst Follow

5 min

Incidents involving drones have been on the rise in recent months in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Moscow accuses the United States of ordering the alleged Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin. "A lie," according to Washington. These devices target military bases or energy infrastructure on both sides of borders. Interview with Franck Lefèvre, Director of Defence Programs at ONERA (National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research).

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RFI: How far can drones travel?

Franck Lefèvre: They can travel several tens of kilometers, depending on their autonomy. It is very dependent on the size they have. There are drones with a wingspan of several meters, with a sufficiently powerful motorization (thermal or electric engine) capable of carrying large loads over long distances. Moreover, we see that the conflict in Ukraine shows that with a drone bought at a hundred euros, we destroy a tank at 8 million euros. This is clearly demonstrated in Ukraine.

Does this conflict reveal the military power that can be obtained with little means, but a lot of damage?

The presence of armed drones in theatres of operations is increasingly important, as evidenced by the Ukrainian conflict, and this poses many difficulties. Until then, we used drones for reconnaissance. It was Florence Parly who first talked about armed drones in 2017, and that's when we armed our Reaper drones.

The difficulty we face today is that these are small drones capable of carrying loads that can do a lot of damage. These drones are difficult to detect, on the one hand because of their small size, but also because of their composition either in plastic or in composite materials, which often requires a combination of several detection technologies, conventional radars alone or infrared technologies, not always being sufficient; For example, drones with electric motors emit little infrared radiation and are therefore difficult to detect.

This is a real difficulty when we know that these drones are freely available and therefore within everyone's reach. You just have to transform them into a weapon. We have the example of the drone, which was not malicious, but which went to land at the feet of Angela Merkel: we dare not imagine what could have happened if there was an explosive charge inside.

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So the main problem is detection?

Indeed, and it is precisely on this subject that we are working at ONERA. The detection of a drone in an urban environment is relatively complex, it is a dense environment where it is difficult to discriminate a malicious object from another object. It should also be noted that the neutralization phase is also complex depending on the environment in which the drone operates. The destruction of a drone in the middle of the desert does not pose the same problems of collateral effects as in an urban environment. Therefore, the phases of detection, recognition, identification and neutralization are complex and require means specifically adapted to this type of target.

What type of particular equipment are you referring to?

ONERA is working on several detection systems, considering that a combination of technologies will be necessary in the face of a threat of this type. We are working on radar-based technologies. There are two types of radar, active radars that emit an electromagnetic wave that reflects on the drone, which allows its detection. ONERA is also working on so-called passive radars, i.e. we use the electromagnetic environment that exists, for example that of mobile phone networks. These ambient waves are reflected on moving drones and the radar detects these reflected signals. ONERA has developed this technology that can detect small drones – a few tens of centimeters in wingspan – several kilometers away.

ONERA is also developing optronic technologies, again of two types, passive or active. The so-called passive systems perform a classic observation of the scene either in visible light or in infrared light. We are also developing active, laser-based optronic systems called Lidar (Light Detection And Ranging), which can be used for drone detection, illuminating the scene with a laser and detecting photons that are reflected by the drone.

I repeat, the difficulty is to detect, recognize and identify and neutralize, in a complex environment such as the urban environment. It is necessary to be able to discriminate threatening objects from those that are not. The wingspan of a drone is sometimes close to the wingspan of a bird for example. We therefore need systems that make it possible to make this discrimination, and that is why it is very likely that a detection system worthy of the name is a system that combines several technologies, such as radar and optronics, for example.

This is why ONERA is also working on merging data from different types of sensors, in order to provide operational staff with reliable information, with the lowest possible false alarm rate, thus identifying a threatening target. ONERA is also working on the ramp-up of laser sources, one of the possible applications being the neutralization of drones.

Will we see an increase in conflicts "with drones"?

Quite possibly. The drone has several advantages, for the attacker, over-the-counter, low cost and allowing to operate safely. The conditions are ripe for this type of threat to proliferate.

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