The FPV video shows the vision of a Ukrainian suicide drone attacking a Russian armored vehicle for the last time. The video feed cuts out, interrupted due to Russian radio interference, and the pilot loses control. Typically this would be the end of the mission, but video from a second drone shows the AI-enabled FPV guiding directly toward the target and scoring a direct hit. It is one of the first moves that a new intelligent autopilot provided through the American company Auterion, which avoids interference and has a higher good luck rate than human pilots.
The Skynode S autopilot, introduced last week, is already on the front line in Ukraine. The ability to fix long diversity makes interference unnecessary; I’ve noticed a number of combat videos that I can’t rate for safety reasons, and caveats apply, however, as far as we know, the formula is effective. As Dr. Lorenz Meier, CEO of Auterion, told me, automatically hitting targets with FPVs is just the beginning.
Auterion app developers can write their own apps for Skynode S and download what they need. Meier says terminal steering programs for attack drones are the most popular in recent times.
“The terminal address is like MS Office on a laptop,” explains Meier. “It’s the minimum requirement that everyone expects. “
The Pentagon obviously believes in Auterion’s open source software, putting it at the center of its Blue sUAS initiative for small, American-made military drones. This was implemented as an option for Chinese-supplied drones, which are becoming popular with a built-in security threat. and are banned by the US military.
In the past, Auterion developed the Skynode The new Skynode S offers similar functions but at a particularly reduced price. cost.
“In Ukraine we offer a point of ‘help to Ukraine,'” Meier says. “Normally, it’s worth the variety of an Android phone, which costs several hundred dollars. “
This puts the Skynode S in the same elegance as thermal imaging in terms of particularly extending the load of a $500 FPV, but providing particularly advanced capabilities. And the load can be minimized as production increases.
“Skynode S. . . will be manufactured in the tens of thousands, which is a scale,” Meier says.
Not surprisingly, Auterion is also reportedly concerned about the Pentagon’s Replicator program to deploy a giant number of cheap AI-powered drones.
The steering formula allows for optical locking: the operator identifies the target and signals it to the autopilot while the drone is out of jamming range. It can then continue to pass through the “interference bubble” even if the operator loses contact. According to General Pierre Schill, chief of staff of the French army, 75% of drones are destroyed lately through jamming.
Meier says his AI terminal steering formula used in Ukraine so far has hit all targets in initial deployment, compared to 20-40% for human-controlled FPVs. He doesn’t expect an uninterrupted run of success, but he believes they can still achieve a particularly higher rate than human pilots.
This eliminates the two main causes of failure (pilot error and interference).
The implication is that with a steering formula like Auterion S, 4 times as many drones could pass, and then they would have a higher success rate thanks to intelligent steering. It is troubling to think that the already high rate of destruction of the FPV may be particularly higher thanks to such an undeniable modification.
And while the current edition simply guides the drones to the target, long-term advancements will likely come with crosshair selection, where the AI chooses the most vulnerable point. For example, they can simply circle around to hit the rear of the turret of Russian tanks, which tends to cause a catastrophic explosion, or the ammunition depot of a self-propelled gun.
Open-source software makes it less difficult to expand new applications. In June, the nonprofit Dronecode hosted a 48-hour hackathon in Krakow for NATO, challenging groups of coders to expand a formula for visually identifying targets and mapping out a flight path to intercept them. They used an earlier edition of Skynode S with AuterionOS for the newly released product.
“It’s a world first,” Meier says.
But the generation is capable of much more.
GPS and other satellite navigation is heavily jammed in both Ukraine and Russia, affecting even some military-grade systems and throwing U.S.-supplied Excalibur guided artillery rounds and JDAM guided bombs off course as well as drones. The usual solution to this is expensive inertial navigation modules, but these become inaccurate drift over longer ranges and are expensive.
Artificial intelligence systems are also capable of visual navigation, a drone’s camera to locate the path through matching elements on the ground, just like the first pilots, images from previous reconnaissance flights. Some Ukrainian drones already have artificial intelligence software called Eagle Eyes for this.
Long-range attack drones like the Ukrainian Bobrs can receive exact AI guidance for a few hundred dollars.
Meier says that Skynode S can charge an extra touch: terminal guide. Once the drone reaches the target area, an object popularity app can visually capture the target and hit it with pinpoint accuracy. In principle, this means that even an attack from several hundred miles away can locate an express device in an oil refinery, hit the center of a radar antenna or pass through a specific window. Or simply head to a tank stationed far from the front line that has been detected via satellite.
This configuration has already been tested on Ukrainian drones from the Russian Lancet and Shahed.
“The tests showed that it can hit targets precisely,” says Meier. “The formula will be deployed to the front line in the coming weeks. “
Skynode S can also assist in air-to-air combat. Meier hopes that autonomous “air combat” programs will soon be available, which will allow an FPV drone to trace an intercept trajectory, outmaneuver an adversary trying to avoid it, and destroy it without operator intervention, exploding when it arrives. within the destruction distance.
Ukrainian FPV drones have recently begun intercepting Russian reconnaissance drones at higher altitudes. Skynode S can particularly increase the number and success rate of such engagements, while ensuring that Ukrainian drones can outrun Russian interceptors.
An AI pilot can also help with other tasks. For example, some experienced FPV pilots must perform dive-bombing attacks, giving the accuracy of a kamikaze attack but without sacrificing a drone. The main limitation turns out to be the lack of experienced pilots. But a dive-bombing app may soon be available for download.
Automated minelaying via drones, or employing anti-jamming drones to drop tire-destroying traps on fast lanes behind enemy lines, or simply resupplying friendly forces can also be much easier.
Looking at the bigger picture, Meier says Skynode S is already embedded with Ukrainian battlefield control software like ATAK and Kropyva. These systems and commands collect data from drones, satellites, and other assets and combine it into a single visual image for commanders on the ground. He demonstrates this with a video of an AI-powered reconnaissance drone that detects objects and sends data.
The Skynode S hardware is small and enough to install in reconnaissance quadcopters
Targets are still controlled by a human operator, but the AI system has already done the vast majority of the work to locate pieces of interest in the video stream. As the drone no longer requires an operator, this will ensure more accurate tracking of the front, 24/7, in real-time. And because you only want to talk when you discover something, AI-based popularity requires much less bandwidth to send much more useful information.
AI also provides the ability to incorporate features such as replacement detection, comparing a scene to its previous appearance to detect new minefields, trenches, vehicle tracks, or camouflaged positions.
Putting AI at the forefront of generation can especially accelerate the process of collecting, processing and disseminating intelligence on the battlefield. Thousands of intelligent, autonomous reconnaissance drones may be more vital to war than terminal guidance.
Skynode S also supports drone swarming: a single operator can have multiple drones. Therefore, an operator can have multiple reconnaissance drones and an FPV stack ready to launch, employing the scouts to locate targets and guiding the FPVs to interact with them.
This gives the impression that the entire chain of destruction could be automated. It’s vital here that there’s a human on the floor to oversee operations, even if you don’t want to be aware of it anymore.
Meier emphasizes that Skynode S is not meant to create autonomous killing machines. Compare the point of automation to the way guided missiles are used lately. The FPV operator who locks on to a target does exactly the same thing as a Javelin missile operator: o They are “fire and forget” weapons that move towards targets in the past designated through a human.
“I would seriously consider anything more autonomous,” Meier says. “But there is still a lot to do without allowing drones to reach targets autonomously. “
It will take a few paintings to fully explore the new features introduced through Skynode S. But with a giant group of software developers, cheap hardware and a reserve of drones to scale it, and a war to win, chances are it will all come quickly. .
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