Not quite, they spool them off from the drone as they go, so they don’t have to deal with any drag across the ground.
This can’t be glass, right? Plastic?
As far as I know they are using standard telecom fiber, so it’s silica glass, partially doped to make the refractive index between core and cladding different
I’m finding that technology has changed a lot since I last looked into this, but glass fiber was not known for its flexibility. For guided rockets, I can see that wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for the maneuvers those drones make it seems fiber would not have some downsides. Do you mean the winged drones?
Nope, it is in fact prop drones using them. I couldnt quickly find a good article or anything on it, but I’m pretty sure because the fiber is just draping freely from the drone to the ground there is plenty of space for the necessary curvature, which I assume isn’t actually that big since it is carried on spools on the drone to counteract getting tangled.
I’m sure there are some specific downsides and more nuanced limitations but the ability to not be affected by RF jamming outweighs it.
Not quite, they spool them off from the drone as they go, so they don’t have to deal with any drag across the ground.
As far as I know they are using standard telecom fiber, so it’s silica glass, partially doped to make the refractive index between core and cladding different
I’m finding that technology has changed a lot since I last looked into this, but glass fiber was not known for its flexibility. For guided rockets, I can see that wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for the maneuvers those drones make it seems fiber would not have some downsides. Do you mean the winged drones?
It’s been a while but in this very comm someone posted pictures of a quadcopter drone with a 41.4 km drum. I’ll try to dig it up.
Here’s one https://sopuli.xyz/post/21919901, it was a hexacopter, not quad.
And in my search I also came across these links:
https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/ukrainians_made_an_fpv_with_fiber_optic_cord_stretching_for_41_km-13327.html
https://defensefeeds.com/analysis/how-do-fiber-optic-drones-work/
And finally here is even a demo video:
It seems fiber works fine even on manoeuvrable drones.
That’s crazy! Thanks for the links, it’s fascinating. Fiber technology has really passed me by.
Nope, it is in fact prop drones using them. I couldnt quickly find a good article or anything on it, but I’m pretty sure because the fiber is just draping freely from the drone to the ground there is plenty of space for the necessary curvature, which I assume isn’t actually that big since it is carried on spools on the drone to counteract getting tangled.
I’m sure there are some specific downsides and more nuanced limitations but the ability to not be affected by RF jamming outweighs it.