Just $15 will make these drones deadly

Deadly robots have arrived on the battlefield in Ukraine.

In the front-line trenches last spring, a Ukrainian drone operator selected a target — a Russian ammunition truck — by tapping it on a tablet screen. Using his remote, the operator selected the autopilot option and then watched the drone dive from a few hundred meters away and hit the truck.

“Let it burn,” said one crew member, as a column of smoke was spotted in a video feed from a reconnaissance drone.

Such strikes represent a major advance in Ukraine’s attempts to use technological innovation to combat the vast Russian military. In the final phase of that attack, the drone was controlled by a small built-in computer designed by the American company Auterion. Several other companies, many of them Ukrainian, have successfully tested similar autopilot systems on the battlefield.

Now an even bigger breakthrough is coming: mass-produced autonomous drones. In a previously unreported major move, Ukraine’s drone suppliers are ramping up production of the robotic attack drones to industrial scale, not just prototype production.

Ukraine’s tiny suicide drones already carry out most of the front-line strikes. What makes the current breakthrough possible is a winning combination of cheap computers and sophisticated, compact systems that mimic capabilities previously found only in much more expensive equipment.

“There is nothing new in this,” said Lorenz Mayer, Auterion’s founder and CEO. “The difference is the price.” Kyiv is set to receive tens of thousands of Auterion’s tiny computers, known as Skynodes, which are expected to hit the battlefield early next year. Vyriy Drone, A leading Ukrainian start-up in the field of drones has announced that it will produce thousands of autopilot drones starting this month. Other companies are also joining in increasing production.

must maintain a technological advantage

Ukraine, whose population is about a quarter that of Russia, depends on maintaining a technological edge to repel waves of Russian tanks and soldiers. The use of computer-guided drones is particularly promising because it significantly reduces the number of people required to perform tasks, from identifying targets to attacking them. They also offer a cheap alternative to expensive missiles and artillery shells that could help Ukraine maintain its defenses, should the new Trump administration cut funding.

Ukraine’s tiny suicide drones are already doing most of the front-line strikes. Large-scale production of autonomous drones could help Ukraine overcome the biggest obstacle these drones face: Russian electronic jamming.

“The technology has moved from an idea on paper to the battlefield, but the question is, will it be able to tip the scales?” said Samuel Bendt, senior fellow in the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The new technological development also enables further developments in the near future, such as allowing one pilot to control a swarm of multiple drones that can fly largely independently. Auterion is partnering with Ukrainian startup Swarmer to bring autonomous swarms to the frontline, while Vyriy is working with Sine Engineering, another new Ukrainian company.

At the same time, Russia also announced that it uses computer-guided drones to attack targets. In addition, a number of videos have been circulated online purporting to show Russian suicide drones guided by long optical cables, which prevent frequency interference and provide a clearer transmission.

Arms factories were set up to deal with the Russian invasion

Ukraine’s rapid adoption of drone technology for reconnaissance and strikes has given it an advantage over Russia since the start of the war. So far, Ukraine has won the technological race against Russia, but the Kremlin’s advantage lies in its ability to increase production in the state-directed economy.

Kiev’s drone manufacturers are the opposite of modern arms manufacturers, which have become industrial giants. Ukraine’s young companies, operating under fire and applying innovation from all corners of society, have created an ecosystem of garage-sized factories and war-converted workshops, with government assistance. Many of them specialized in the production of certain components, such as propellers, structural elements and engines.

With a limited supply of artillery ammunition, Ukraine has in the past year become increasingly dependent on suicide drones to deter Russian attacks. The agile aircraft, which have four propellers and are the size of a saucer, are controlled by a pilot who wears virtual reality glasses through which he receives a live broadcast from a built-in camera. They are called first-person view drones, or FPVs, and are equipped with explosives that detonate on impact.

Russia disabled the Ukrainian drones using electronic warfare equipment that shoots them down by embedding the signal between the remote control and the aircraft. This means that depending on the skill of the operator, about one in five FPV drones will hit their targets.

The autopilot technology prevents communication disruption by embedding the drone control software directly on the cheap minicomputer. Expensive missiles have used this technology, known as the ‘final directive’, since the 1970s. Companies like Auterion and Vyriy make it small, cheap and smart – even capable of tracking and hitting moving targets.

Both companies’ solutions track a target on the battlefield using a technology called pixel-lock, where the drone locks onto its prey using its camera and computer, without the need for remote guidance by an operator.

Vyriy aims for the lowest production cost. It was founded after the Russian invasion in 2022 by 26-year-old Alexei Babenko, a motorcycle enthusiast who studied sociology.

His company has developed software that allows a ready-to-use tiny computer that costs about $15 to fly the drone toward a target, using a camera that costs about the same amount. Bebanco said drones have about a nine out of ten success rate once the autopilot is engaged.

Babanko said the drones have a success rate of about nine out of ten times once the autopilot is activated, but recently they have run into problems with Russian forces using electronic jamming to cut off the analog video signal the pilot uses to fly the craft into the strike zone.

Vyriy is trying to overcome this problem by allowing the video transmission to hop between frequencies, as well as by developing a digital video link. The company aims to keep the cost under $50. “The best thing is that it’s very cheap,” Bebanco said. “We can’t put a video link at a high price.”

Charities purchase military equipment

Almost all components for the drone are made in Ukraine. The motors and camera come from China, while the minicomputer comes from another country.

Babanko and its founding partners invested $20,000 to establish the company and the current money comes from the government, military units and charity funds that buy their drones. Ukrainian charities that supply equipment to the military have become key partners in the war because they don’t require much paperwork. The organizations can buy equipment, give it to the soldiers to test and try something else if it doesn’t work, which creates competition between the drone companies.

“Now in Ukraine, if you produce something cool you don’t need a lot of money to produce more,” said Bebanco.

Auterion, which is based in Virginia and has supplied the US Department of Defense and other federal agencies with drones for years, is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to develop drones that can evade electronic jamming. For Ukraine, it only makes the Skynode, a custom minicomputer the size of a small fist that already uses digital video.

Auterion differs from many other drone technology providers because Skynode combines a variety of functions including guidance, targeting and communication, all using fully digital communication that makes it difficult to hack or disrupt. Lorenz Meier, founder of Auterion, compares this to how smartphones combine tasks that were previously handled separately by cell phones, digital cameras and satellite navigation units. Because of its versatility, the processor is also embedded in fixed-wing attack drones, which have greater range, he said.

Skynode, which Mayer says costs about the same as an Android smartphone, replaces the computational brain in almost every drone, he said. Mayer is known in the drone world for years ago creating a variety of open source software that is widely used.

The Russians are hiding tanks

Autopilot drones offer a host of advantages. In standard FPV drones, the link between the controller and the drone relies on radio waves, so the drone needs to avoid large objects that can block the signal. Ukrainian drone teams often send a second aircraft to hover in the air and transmit the signal between the pilot and the FPV, allowing them to operate from the bunker and extend the range of the craft up to 24 kilometers. But the Russians hide tanks and other potential targets on the far side of hills, or behind obstacles that cut off the link.

The use of a final directive overcomes these problems. Autopilot mode can be activated from a mile and 73 meters away from the target – well beyond the short range of the jammers. Drones with autopilot can attack objects behind hills because they don’t need to maintain a signal with the pilot during the attack phase.

The onboard computer stabilizes the drone, which means the pilot does not have to constantly adjust the angle of flight to keep it stable. One pilot told Auterion that flying the drone and attacking Russian targets became so easy that it became boring.