Personal Drones: A potential new weapon?

The Ukraine Russia war has drastically changed the opinion of many on Russia’s activities, how war is fought, and what future wars will look like. What role have personal drones taken in this conflict, do they pose a risk, and how could governments in the future react to drone usage?

What role have personal drones taken in the Russia Ukraine war?

As someone who operates in the field of journalism, neutrality is essential, even in electronics. Every day, research papers come out stating that their developments will revolutionise the memory industry or that some CPU architecture will beat all the others. All these announcements and press releases must be filtered, verified, and then appropriately reported on.

But in the case of the Russia Ukraine war, it is increasingly difficult to try and maintain any kind of neutral viewpoint, especially considering that over 90% of countries around the world denounce the invasion by Russia.?From indiscriminate attacks to forcing civilians to evacuate into the invading country, it can be said without doubt that the Russian invasion is plain wrong, and anything that the civilians of Ukraine can do to fight against the invaders must be encouraged.

It is at this point in the conversation that personal drones take the spotlight. While Ukrainian forces are being helped with anti-tank weaponry, it could be argued that the drone has been the absolute key to Ukrainian resistance. The ability to fly small drones over the enemy (unknowing to them) gives the Ukrainian army valuable information on troop movement and provides accurate locations for targeted bombing from mortars, planes, and artillery.

But what is suspiring is just how effective?off-the-shelf drones have been. Anything military-related will be extraordinarily expensive. This can clearly be seen in the price of everything from ammunition to missiles (for example, a single cruise missile can be as much as $2 million and will be used to hit a small building or truck). So, seeing off-the-shelf drones that cost no more than a few hundred dollars being used on the front lines shows just how effective they can be.?

However, their use by the Ukrainian military has gone beyond surveillance and trooping monitoring; some have?even gone as far as to make cheap drones weaponised. With the attachment of a servo and a few parts, a cheap drone can be made to drop a small impact bomb, grenade, or charge that has the capacity to take out armoured vehicles (especially when considering that armoured vehicles have the thinnest armour on top).

Do drones pose a risk?

There is no doubt that cheap drones have helped the Ukrainian military, but considering how easy they are to obtain and turn into lethal weapons does raise some serious questions. If an off-the-shelf drone can be rigged into an explosive device that can monitor individuals and then kamikaze into them, what is to stop such devices from being used more commonly back at home?

Drones have already posed challenges for governments worldwide, with reports of users flying drones in restricted airspaces such as around airports. While a drone may be tiny, getting caught in the engine of a passenger plane could be fatal, and it would be virtually impossible to track the culprit.

In fact, the use of drones for malicious purposes has already caused problems in the UAE, where a terror attack launched by Houthis was able to cause multiple fatalities outside of Abu Dabi. Granted, the drones were more sophisticated than your off-the-shelf devices, but they were still manufactured by individuals and did not come from a weapons manufacturer costing millions of dollars each. In response to the attack, the UAE has restricted all citizens from being able to fly drones leaving many with now-useless devices.

Combining the?low-cost nature of off-the-shelf drones with swarming algorithms?and low-cost non-explosive projectiles (such as iron darts used in the first world war), it is possible for drones to be easily used in a major terror attack that would be potentially more dangerous than any improvised explosive device.

How could governments react to drone usage in the future?

Fortunately, there are actions that governments can take which provide people with the freedom to use drones while preventing their use in attacks.?

The first, and most obvious solution,?is to implement a tracking technology?into every single drone that announces its position at all times. The use of unique registrations (like license plates) will allow for flying devices to be monitored and verified in real-time. Devices found to be flying without registration could be detected through multiple technologies, including RADAR, UWB, and LoRA, with the offender facing severe punishment.?

This solution could further be combined with a new authority similar to the DVLA whereby individuals register their devices. Such a flying license would be required to purchase drone equipment, and this would help increase the difficulty of ordering large quantities of drones without raising suspicion.?

But how would any of these actions stop individuals from building drones from scratch with easily accessible software online? The short answer is that it wouldn’t, just as it is impossible to stop those with a 3D printer from printing a functioning gun. This is why any future defence would require the mass deployment of short-wave?RADAR systems that can be mounted on?rooftops (just like cellular towers) to track objects live and report objects that carry no identification number.

Overall, trying to regulate drone technology will be highly challenging. It would be unfair to outright ban drones as over 99.999999% of drones are used for peaceful reasons. But as their capabilities increase, we must seriously consider their misuse and how that misuse can be managed.