Mediaboss Marketing

Seeing the Ukrainians need for drones, in July 2016 the U.S. did include some in a military assistance program, supplying 72 RQ-11 Raven drones worth about $12 million. Although proving capable in Iraq and Afghanistan, they quickly became a horrible vulnerability in the field. Russians are much more adept at 'radio-electronic warfare', and Russian-backed rebels had little trouble countering them. Now surviving Ravens are gathering dust in storage.

Could the Fury succeed where the U.S. Raven had so clearly failed? In a 2015 interview, Fury developers described how its drone uses multiple radio channels. Even if two are jammed, the drone still operates. Fury can survive GPS jamming, and when all signals are blocked, the autopilot can carry the drone out of the jammer's range by flying a pre-programmed route. The new RQ-11 Raven has a jam-resistant secure digital data link, but wasn't the version provided to Ukraine. So where a U.S. drone failed, Ukraine's homemade remedy provided an answer.

But surveillance drones like Fury are only half of the military equation, and in 2016, Ukraine started hunting for the other half.

Antonov, once famed for building some of the world's biggest transport planes, is now just a part of the state-run UkrOboronProm, a giant defense conglomerate which some say is riddled with corruption and inefficiency. In summer 2016, Antonov unveiled a prototype of a fixed-wing drone called the AN-BK-1 Horlytsia ("Turtle Dove"). With a twenty-foot wingspan, it's the biggest Ukrainian-made drone ever made, able to "engage targets with onboard weapons" like a cut-price Reaper. Sources say the Turtle Dove could be in the Ukrainian military arsenal later this year.

Another deal with Polish company WB Electronics, will add a second lethal drone called the Warmate a portable kamikaze attack drone resembling the U.S. Switchblade. Ukraine will make up to a thousand Warmates under license; these can take out targets including light armored vehicles from several miles away.

Finally, there's New Energy of Ukraine's Yatagan-2 ("Scimitar"). Costing around $5,000, it launches from a tube, like the Warmate and Switchblade, unfolds its wings, and cruises in search of targets for up to twelve minutes before delivering a two-pound explosive charge in a kamikaze dive. With these three options, Ukraine began to resemble a modern day drone force.

The Ukrainian drone acquisition system is chaoticthe military is bureaucratic, while the militias will use anything they can get. But this chaotic process also produces rapid evolution, going from zero to full-blown combat drones in less than three years all while on an extremely tight budget.

Because of the country's immediate needs, drones are tested in action almost immediately, and then redesigned, upgraded, or discarded in a fierce aerial Darwinian competition. The original Spectator drone was quickly replaced with a much larger version. Consumer drones were superseded by the PD-1 in a matter of months. UKRSPESYSTEMS newest project is the PC-1 tactical multicopter, and after the first three were delivered, users requested changes and has now been reconfigured with eight engines instead of four.

With the conflict unfortunately flaring up in recent weeks, Ukraine may remain outnumbered and outgunned, but they won't remain out-droned.

See more here:
Ukraine's Drone Army Was Born In a Crucible of Conflict - Popular Mechanics