Is Ukraine Sweeping Roads With Lasers To Fry Unjammable Russian Drones?
In theory, a laser could damage optic fiber.
A video purportedly from a Russian source seems to depict a Ukrainian drone sweeping a road with a laser. The point of view of the footage hints at why.
The video feed is from a fiber-optic “waiter” drone. An explosive first-person-view drone that connects to its operator via a miles-long optic fiber, and idles on a roadside in low-power mode, scanning for approaching enemy forces.
Spotting an enemy, the waiter drone operator would activate the drone, take off and attack. The fiber-optic control makes the drone effective unjammable and difficult to detect via electronic means, as its electromagnetic emissions are scant.
Fiber-optic waiters are extremely dangerous. And that’s why both sides in Russia’s 49-month wider war on Ukraine are working so hard to defeat them. The Ukrainians are already deploying gun-armed unmanned ground vehicles that patiently patrol key roads, looking for waiters—and blasting them.
The aerial laser in that video may be another Ukrainian countermeasure against Russian waiters. Optical fiber is a medium for back-and-forth laser light encoded with data. It may be possible to damage the fiber … with a laser. But only in certain cases.
