The Low-Budget Tech That Redefined Ukraine's Fight 

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The patch on his uniform at 12:15 is dope

2:53 "Invented for Hobbyists" more like it's invented BY hobbyists. The first quadcopter was literally a couple of broomsticks with two RC helicopter gyros. The breakthrough was when someone ripped the gyro off a nintendo wii and made the first flight controller out of it. Every DIY drone today (including the suicide drones in Ukraine) can be traced back to that prototype. The drone the military developed is completely different from the hobby one. 3:14 The mavic drop mechanisms were originally for fishing so you can carry the hook to the exact part of the lake you want and drop it there. The trigger is just a light sensor pressed right up against one of the drons LED lights. A switch on the controller turns on that light, the light sensor detects it, and drops the payload. Unlike the DIY drones where you just connect to a servo lead, there is no way to actually hardwire the drop mechanism to a mavic, it even has to have its own battery to power the light sensor and servo. 4:49 Yeah, they have to figure out the manufacturing. The garage nature of the quadcopters development meant everything about it is open source. The software, firmware, the OSD, even the firmware for ESC's are on GitHub. ARM cpu's used on these things are also open license and rather primitive compared to what intel makes. The most difficult parts to make on it are the CPU's (There are atleast five on each drone), Gyro and OSD. Find a source for those and you can pretty much assemble your own flight controllers. The firmware/softwares been continuously refined for over a decade to accept different types of motors, compensate for performance and load differences and still fly. They're going to be more expensive compared to the mass manufacturing behemoths in china, but if it's about supply chains, you can make a factory, it's all open source. 6:44 "Now, the drones are full of advanced technology". I'm not too sure about that. The flight controllers have remained unchanged since 2016. You can take a any flight controller from back then and attach a GPS, barometer (altimeter), sonicsensor (distance from obstacles), basically every module you can put on an arduino kit, will work on the drone. We just don't put them on because of the weight, we crash a lot and it gets expensive. 7:21 Solder joint could be better. 7:55 "New antenna technology", those are standard antennas you often see long range FPV hobbyists have been using for a decade now. 8:00 That's not mavic, that's a diy drone, and the vtx's they use start at 300mw, 1w is not uncommon but we'd rather not use it if we don't want to railroad someone else's signal. 3w will get the FCC and radio hobbyists hunting you down. There are just video tho, the control signal has to be even stronger to reach several kilometers, and there is no way a 3w control signal 6km away can survive a 3w jammer a hundred meters away. 8:55 Why i don't think there are any real innovations coming out of this war is because the most obvious one i could think of is not on any video. If you have a drone with a GPS, your drone knows EXACTLY where it is within a foot, it also knows how much it's correcting for wind to stay in place. So you have the windspeed, and the altitude. You can overlay that on the OSD calculate exactly where the bomb will land regardless of wind conditions or even when the drone is in motion. But no, it's still just an off the shelf fishing gadget strapped to a mavic. Another innovation that i'd have focused on is an anti radiation drone. You can make a phased array antenna out of three standard antennas, tie that to an FPV plane and when the noise floor becomes unusually high (it's the middle of nowhere and you feel likely you're wading through a neighborhood full of wifi routers, someone's jamming you). It can tell where the strongest signal is coming from and fly straight at it. 10:18 Tomahawk has terrain mapping and works without a GPS. I've seen a Russian squad cycling out of a battlezone. A squad came out of the transport and part of the gear they were tossing out was a plastic toolbox with a 900mhz antenna coming out of it. The squad being relieved were also carrying a similar looking toolbox. They're already deploying jammers at the squad level and they look like they're big enough to hold a battery that can last through a 3 day cycle. It's not as powerful as the truck mounted jammers but they're cheaper and easier to mass produce. I've also seen a Ukrainian suicide drone with night vision. I somehow doubt they actually use that on the regular as that camera's three or four times more expensive than the drone and in short supply even on the mass market. Unless the handful of companies that make them significantly ramped up production in the last couple of years, i doubt there enough of them to supply the front.

I had a startup in the late 90's that failed selling robotic weaponry. It was childs play compared to modern stuff. But absolutely NO ONE saw the benefit of drone weaponry back then. Heck the term drone wasn't even a thing. It was an abject failure. I was 25 years too early.

"Our rifles is our brain"...

Airborne land mines

Very impressive and likely the way all wars will be fought for the foreseeable future

Companies like Droneshield in Australia are building drone defense systems for this terrible situation.

The Drone Wars

the modern molotov

swarms of ai drones will be game changer

Fantastic documentary 👏🏼

I build and fly my own custom FPV Acro Freestyle Quads 😎

Hard to believe that small drone in the thumbnail can carry an RPG warhead.

I literally thought they strapped a cucumber on a drone lol

Many thanks for showing our situation to the wide audience!

They showed a SpeedyBee flight controller 😮

The Ukrainian Resistance is so impressive and entrepreneurial.

Wow - this is where you realise how important adaptability truly is. Congratulations! But these traits are precisely what make the Human Species so incredible. Brilliant young people making the vital adaptations to protect their people. Keep it up!!

i feel bad for both sides the troops don't have any choice in this

Super informative program. Many thanks.

Absolutely fascinating

Mavic 2 has 1500 USD approx, not few hundred dollars.

I am a retired engineer. I programmed in college with punch cards feed to main frame computers. Key boards were a teletype or typewriter. I would be have a totally different background if 20 yrs younger.

Excellent news!❤

These are smart people fighting smart people. It's not the US attacking a 3rd world country

Stay blessed Ukraine 🇺🇦 keeping yall in my prayers ❤

An interesting, informative and well produced video. Thank you. 👍

On Twitter Nafo rules.

NAFO for the win!

The Proliferation of Civilian Drones in Ukraine - around the world civilians have seen the power of the civilian drones - civilians are able to take on the superpowers and win

Go Aussie!!!!

Slava ukraini!

Peace to Ukraine!

@ 6:19 - Hey that's Vampires quad!

5:20 In no way at the moment that propeller made in Ukr cost less than it is made in China. Just a commercial speech.

US citizens, write your congress reps to send real aid and quit delaying.

Дякую

Is it safe for them to appear in such videos?

Sounds like the start of The Terminator lol

I hope the US elections do not change the level of support needed for Ukraine.

The west should directly fund Ukrainian defense innovation funds that support people like this. Building a sustainable Ukrainian self industry is vital long term

glory to Ukraine!

Excellent reporting!

thank you, great video

Necessity is mother of innovations. Glad that drones there are not being manufactured by some greedy corporations.

I have always tought before the war, that drones and other electronic systems wouldn't be viable as weappons, because they would be too expensive. They are sure too expensive for me, but not for a nation's arms budget, and they really do worth the deal. I'm also seriously concerned now, how easy would it be for criminals to use this technology against civillians. I have no idea how law enforcement is going to defend against stuff like this.

😂😂

New Meta of War.

Even Russians are now using this to hit super expensive NATO tanks. They also have even better longer distance communications and Ukraine drone jammers

To survive while in the wrong side of history not worth

Slava Ukraini

2:40 "BoomBox" 😊

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

with the only problem that the biggest drone producer China is Russia best friend

The Ukrainian people are Amazing and incredible. They remind me of the original Americans that founded the USA.

WHAT are those litttle coile pecies of wire with the spike in the middle?

The dude looks like Bill Gates and even his voice is very similar!

much

Why not cover Myanmar's drone warfare? They have been used in the civil war since 2021

Fantastic journalism

Super!

Well done.

NAFO expansion is non-negotiable.

❤❤❤❤

Finally something reasonable and pragmatic. A breath of fresh air. Mick London

The guy talking about the drone looks like Cooks 👂 💀

Please tell me they’re called camerakasis

Imagine war with the country who build that drone 😂😂😂😂

you talk about fpv drones but you show MAVIC's which are NOT fpv drones... come on.

My grandfather had developed drones in the 1930's he was way ahead of his time.

More drones and more cowbells 😂

Talks about FPV - shows DJI Mavic 😂 "jOuRNaLiSm"

Accelerated Innovation / Forced R&D.

Hello from Ukraine. Thanks for this video. Sent donation to Sternenko (an ambassador of all FPV drones in Ukraine).

:(

12:16

directional emp machine wins vs drones

SLAVA UKRAİNİ♥️♥️♥️🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

为什么我在国内看到的新闻是，中国已经禁止向俄罗斯和乌克兰出售无人机。他们怎么弄到的？地下交易？

2:55 DJI drones are all made in China btw.

Great! Keep your lives safe! And your economi independent!

We are people fighting each other instead of their rulers?

ah yes the english guy. clearly ukranian 😅😅😅

Can they attach 155 rounds?

Black Ops 2 was not a video game, they were trying to warn us.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦👍

What are you trying to sell here that this is somehow a Ukr thing? Russia is producing for a year now like 200k of those per month.

heh

the all might boomstick is making a come back

Пи..дец, сколько добра перемалывается на войне. Для чего...

I love the Ukrainians!

A message from Gandhi to Putin: “There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.”

🤣😂🤣😂🙃😂🤣😂🤣⚰🪦

Black Ukrainian hand in the thumbnail? - Adûnâi

The DJIs aren't FPVs... jesus christ how did this piece make it to production with that level of mistake?

IT's Russia's, not Europe's.

Go Ukraine!❤

gfys

Subtitles overlaid onto subtitles - gee, thanks!