How to Hide from Killer Drones

(economist.com)

44 points | by pseudolus 2 hours ago ago

27 comments

  • orthoxerox 19 minutes ago

    Dazzle camouflage doesn't work on killer drones. Even civilian LLMs recognize that the object on the photograph is a military truck, except they can't explain why it's been painted to resemble a zebra. Most dedicated machine vision models easily lock in on a boxy shape moving along a road. If anything, the stripes make the trucks easier to see.

    The real answer to killer drones is a CIWS that can cover 2pi steradians and attack multiple drones at the same time, because otherwise it will be just swarmed by drones that quietly glide towards it, engines off, from several directions before entering the final dive.

    • ukd1 15 minutes ago
      • atoav 6 minutes ago

        [delayed]

    • yogthos 17 minutes ago

      The difference is that a neural network you can fit on a drone is going to be a lot less capable than an LLM you can run on a desktop.

      • MengerSponge 9 minutes ago

        Doesn't a fiber tether give its drone desktop-class computing?

        • vanviegen 4 minutes ago

          Fiber tethered drones don't need to be AI controlled.

    • 1over137 4 minutes ago

      CIWS?

  • davidwritesbugs 22 minutes ago

    As a bonus it will also repel horse flies.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/zebra-stripes-confus...

  • ahartmetz 41 minutes ago

    Oh, so dazzle camouflage is back. I wonder if the more sophisticated "classic" patterns would work better. They certainly do for human observers.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

  • haunter 4 minutes ago

    You don't

    /r/CombatFootage (NSFL)

  • pseudolus an hour ago
  • delichon 44 minutes ago

    Twenty four years later I'm still looking for ways to evade the spider drones deployed by PreCrime in Minority Report.

  • tcp_handshaker 25 minutes ago
    • echelon 16 minutes ago

      Prescient.

      This film predated the Ukraine war, and it felt like fiction six years ago.

      This is absolutely coming.

      The government is concerned about who might print a 3D gun, but this is the real danger.

  • trhway an hour ago

    Half the time it is the nighttime and the things are in IR https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47000051 . You may still try to camouflage and decrease your IR visibility - stealth planes try to do it, and there are some IR-decreasing covers for tanks and people.

    The night time hunt using IR is widely practiced today in Ukraine and even was widely practiced by US and USSR in Afghanistan and Iraq as surroundings gets cooled down and cars, people and say donkeys used to transport weapons in mountains become highly contrast against the surroundings and thus easy to spot visually and to lock IR seeker of a weapon. Saddam used USSR anti-ship missiles, old even then, to attack Iran oil storage tanks at night as the missiles were easily able to lock on that large bright IR emission of the tanks still hot from the day against the cold night desert.

  • esseph an hour ago

    If you're really interested in this kind of thing, Grand Thumb on YouTube has a couple of videos about it. I think it was Dirty Civilian on YouTube that had a good video on how to prepare hide sites and the impact of using the right laundry detergent as to reduce or eliminate IR brightener chemicals, etc.

  • ButlerianJihad an hour ago

    Machine Learning CAPTCHA https://m.xkcd.com/2228/

  • stefan_ 37 minutes ago

    This is an odd article that tries to elevate some random grunt in the field painting their truck white stripes to grand battlefield strategy in the face of autonomous AI killer drones. Neither are the latter real nor is the former actually in widespread use, and it obviously is not effective, not least because the drones it's talking about barely have the resolution at altitude to resolve that detail.

    • joezydeco 33 minutes ago
      • stefan_ 16 minutes ago

        Yes, media see a snapdragon running a YOLO and go off writing "AI apocalypse autonomous killer drones" articles.

        See it for yourselves: https://x.com/RALee85/status/2071537561059692956

        Some object detection and (human triggered) terminal guidance. It's essentially there to solve latency and control issues for a fixed wing platform with a spotty data link.

        • joezydeco 4 minutes ago

          If it works, who cares how it's made?

    • trhway 29 minutes ago

      >not least because the drones it's talking about barely have the resolution at altitude to resolve that detail.

      the drones are used in groups. That is for example how we have a lot of footage of the drones hitting targets. The drone observers or especially the intelligence drone guiding the group would frequently carry much better camera than the actual kamikaze drones (especially when it comes to high-resolution IR cameras which are expensive). In the fully autonomous AI mode the drone is usually given small target area where to operate (in particular because they aren't yet smart enough to differentiate Ukranians from Russians, so you'd like to confine their operations to a limited area and not letting it into the totally free hunt) and regular 4K camera is sufficient there. Again, there is a lot of footage on YT an TG.

  • sleepyguy 36 minutes ago

    If anyone here is into drones, manufactures, ideas, or wants to either use their drone piloting skills or learn how to pilot drones. Ukraine is recruiting for positions.

    https://usforces.army/en

    • kakacik 23 minutes ago

      Just beware that being part of the drone team isnt some comfy safe job far from danger, they are the most hated type of unit currently since they are deciding large part of this war (and any future war it seems). I see videos of ie glide bombs used by both sides targetting specifically positions of drone teams.

      If all this is clear and you go ahead, all the power to ya, fighting evil in this world is highly commendable.

      • wartywhoa23 12 minutes ago

        > fighting evil in this world is highly commendable

        Except more often than not it is fighting not evil but sleeping civilians who don't support this war, which is not even war in the strict sense of the word, but a deliberate meatgrinder set up to devour as much human beings on both sides as its orchestrators can get away with, for as long as possible.

      • trhway 17 minutes ago

        Like sharpshooters, the drone operators are usually executed instead of being taken POW.