Re:Army computer models unveil secret to quieter small drones
by contingencies on Friday December 04, 2020 @06:23PM
(#25309663)
chance that the enemy could also see the downlinks
You would think they would have highly directional signals by now.
Re:Army computer models unveil secret to quieter small drones
by elihu on Friday December 04, 2020 @06:38PM
(#25309792)
Directional radio antennas tend to be rather large, and I'm not sure it's even feasible to get rid of side-lobes to the point where they're undetectable (or at least, with a signal too weak to interpret).
Directional optical links might be feasible, but probably a lot more expensive than a simple radio.
Well, you could make boutique drones exploiting state of the art tech that are so expensive you can only afford three of them. Or you could just buy load of cheap throwaway drones and swarm your targets with them.
Remember, lots of drones used as ISR assets had unencrypted video downlinks because the chance that the enemy could also see the downlinks was considered less bad than the cost of rolling out state of the art crypto across coalition forces