Ukraine Employs Sea/USV-Launched Fiber-Optic FPV Multirotor Drones To Attack Coastal Targets
🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Commentary
Commentary-themed posts tend to deal with recent developments. These will typically be much shorter and less detailed than my analysis-themed posts, for which commentary-themed posts may serve as “building blocks.”
Newly available images and video indicate that Ukraine has begun to use armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic cable communication uplink/downlink variety to attack terrestrial targets along the Black Sea coastline. It bears emphasis that Ukraine’s use of USV-launched strike munitions, including armed “FPV” multirotor drones, is not a new development; only the first publicly available documentation of a USV-launched armed “FPV” multirotor drone of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety is particularly notable at this time.
This Ukrainian USV does not appear to be equipped to ram into a target ship, which requires the installation of both a warhead and one or more fuses on the USV’s hull. The USV itself is a human-in-the-loop design controlled via the commercially available Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications (SATCOM)/satellite internet system. As far as the USV is concerned, there is nothing remarkable about its design other than its payload of four large containers that are used to store one armed “FPV” multirotor drone each.
There is nothing particularly remarkable about the armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic uplink/downlink variety carried on the Ukrainian USV other than the longstanding fact that “FPV” multirotor drones are incredibly volume inefficient uncrewed aircraft-turned-strike munitions. A fixed-wing strike drone design with folding wings, which can also be equipped with a fiber-optic cable uplink/downlink, is much more practical for use in such applications, given that such designs can be more readily encapsulated/containerized. Given the volume inefficient form factor, this Ukrainian USV could only transport and launch four armed “FPV” multirotors at a time.
While there are some practical challenges associated with flying armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic uplink/downlink variety over water, especially in a coastal as opposed to a riverine context, the approach is nevertheless practical and has potential applications elsewhere, including in the Taiwan Strait:
