Drones growing in popularity on the battlefield
If there's one new thing the war in Ukraine has showed us, it's the widespread tactical application of consumer drones. Employed by both sides, they have been used for everything from recon to kinetics. They gather intel with their gimbaled eyes, drop grenades with servos, and occasionally get shot down. The war in Ukraine marks a new era of warfare: any soldier or civilian can pay a few hundred dollars on Amazon and join the fight in a way that, as of today, is very difficult to prevent or combat.
Current weakness of drones on the battlefield
There is one huge drawback to using drones in combat, however. EMCON. A military shorthand for EMission CONtrol, this concept concerns the defensive side of SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence); finding, decoding, reading, and locating electromagnetic signals. With drones, the operator is nearly always standing somewhere closeby to the drone, with a controller and/or smartphone, controlling it using electromagnetic signals, generally on the WiFi bands. This means that the operator's location can be triangulated, and then hit with artillery.
Other drawbacks of WiFi
The other issue with controlling drones with WiFi is that, at least on the models we have seen in use the most, flight plans can't be stored on the drone itself. This is the case for the most common consumer drones, such as the DJI Mini line. Which means that in order to use the drone (or to use any drone with realtime video feed), the operator has to maintain that WiFi connection. This means that a simple jammer can neutralize the drone altogether (and when most drones Return-To-Home upon signal loss, it also means that the operator's location will be revealed by the returning drone!).
An evolving technology
Drone technology is still relatively young. DJI itself hasn't even been a contender for a decade. There is still plenty of room for innovation, and the war in Ukraine has revealed areas that need it. This is why drones are still considered an "emerging technology." Could we find a viable solution to the issue we've laid out, in another emerging technology?
Mesh networking: Another emerging technology
The answer, I believe, is yes! Another emerging technology is mesh networking. Just like drones, any consumer can purchase equipment to stand up their own mesh network with just a few hundred dollars, from websites such as Amazon, Etsy, and Adafruit. In another article I will go over some combat applications of mesh networking, but for now we will just look at how it could be employed to solve our problem with WiFi.
Feasible ideas not yet materialized
Almost a year after the start of the war, we have seen custom drone companies pop up and grow in Ukraine, and also in Russia and beyond. Everybody has seen the serious advantage to be had on the battlefield by drones, and have been working to leverage them. But there is one thing that I have not yet seen. I have not seen anybody design and bring to life a drone that communicates on the LoRa bands. These are the RF (Radio Frequency) ranges designated for LoRa (LOngrange RAdio) frequencies. This is the driving technology behind mesh networking (mesh network can also refer to networks using other bands but LoRa is becoming the backbone), and is the driving technology used for the Internet of Things. What would be some benefits of designing a drone that can talk on these bands?
The Internet of Drones
I will break down two scopes of these benefits: local and global. For local we will look at a scenario without Internet access, and for global we will look at a scenario with Internet access.
Redundant, Non-Attributable, Discreet
For our local scenario, let's assume we have a brand-new drone with LoRa capabilities. Let's also assume we have a backpack full of LoRa mesh nodes. These nodes would be powered by batteries, and maybe small solar panels, so we don't have to worry about them too much. Set and Forget. Now if we start hiding these nodes like little Easter eggs around the battlefield before it becomes an active battlefield, we can deploy our own mesh network. What could we do then with a drone that can communicate with this network?
Dialing into the World Wide Web
For our global scenario, let's build off of the local one. There is a type of mesh node, defined by its function, called a gateway. This is a node that is close enough to other mesh nodes to be able to communicate with them (and therefore be part of the mesh network), but is also in a location with some sort of Internet access, so it can be plugged in via Ethernet, or connected via WiFi, etc. Information, commands, etc can be piped to and from the mesh network via this mesh gateway node using protocols such as MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport). What sort of functionality could we gain by being able to communicate with our drone over the Internet?
Hanging From a Cliff
In future articles I will delve into the practical applications of future drone warfare in our local and global scenarios. You've likely had a few ideas yourself at this point. But for now, we can see that: the war in Ukraine is revealing new needs and new opportunities, and emerging technologies may be able to fulfill those. And when combat-applicable technologies don't require nation-state funding, but can be purchased by anybody with a little extra cash, the face of war will change forever.
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