Let's break down this drone vs drone strike reportedly over the skies of Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1580518271635566592
As of this writing, the camera drone is claimed to be Ukrainian, and the victim drone is claimed to be Russian. Though true to form, Russian social media is claiming the other way. Let's break down what happened.
TL;DR
A drone comes up behind another drone and moves above and then drops down, destroying a propeller on the victim drone, and probably downing the victim.
The drones
The victim drone appears to be a DJI Mavic 3. This is a quad-copter weighing 895g (31.6oz). This is a common commercially available drone worth about $3,000 USD.
We don't know what type of drone the camera drone is. The Ukrainians fly a number of drones, from smaller commercial drones to large lifter-style drones. The camera drone could be a lifter-style drone trying to catch the victim in the landing gear, a grenade-dropping drone catching the victim in its release mechanism or another small drone that just YOLO'd and hoped. I have heard one commentator say the camera drone is also DJI, but I have no evidence of this.
Which drone is moving?
From the video, it appears that the camera drone might be stationary and the victim drone is the one moving. But, looks can be deceiving. At that altitude, a drone needs to be moving fairly fast before noticing any movement along the ground, and most drone cameras have pretty good horizon-locking stabilisation. If the victim drone was moving and the camera drone was still, then the victim drone would be tilting side to side (roll) or back to front (pitch). So, it looks like the victim drone is hovering though it might be going straight up or down too.
The blind spot
The camera drone comes from behind the victim drone. The Mavic 3 is a dead cat format quad, meaning that the rear arms are at more of an X while the front two arms are at a flatter angle. This keeps the front propellers out of the camera with a minimal sacrifice in performance that only matters to free-style and racing pilots. From a distance, the dead-cat format of the victim drone is visible, so the camera drone can easily approach from behind. As the camera drone closes the distance, the rear battery light is visible, the sensor cowling at the front is visible, and the folding arms show that the nearest arms fold lower than the further arms. On most folding quads (and on the Mavic 3), the front arms are higher than the rear arms - again to keep the propellers away from the cameras and minimise the amount of debris the propellers throw into the cameras and sensors.
Collison avoidance
The DJI Mavic 3 does have collision avoidance sensors and I have no way of knowing if these were active. Yes, there are backwards and upwards-facing sensors. However, these sensors might not be able to react fast enough to the camera drone.
Swing, miss, swing again and hit
The camera drone attempts to move above the victim drone and pounce downwards but misses on the first attempt. The camera drone misses but is still behind the victim, so it's unlikely that the victim knows what is about to happen.
The camera drone repositions above the victim and then punches down.
We see the camera drone holds steady, and the victim drone cartwheels off to the right while propeller debris fly in front of the camera.
It appears that the victim was struck on one of the rear arms, probably the right rear arm. The victim rolling right could be from the unequal downwards strike or the sudden unequal thrust force from the loss of the right rear prop.
Catastrophic damage
Typically, a quadcopter can survive minor damage to the props, but severe damage will make the quad unflyable, and it will fall from the sky. From the amount of debris we see, and because the camera drone continues to fly seemingly without problem, it's likely that the victim drone fell out of the sky. The impact on the ground would damage the drone further.
Capture with a net
One commenter on twitter suggested deploying a net would allow the camera drone to bag the victim and repurpose it. That's a cool idea with some risks that might not be worth it.
First of all, at present drone on drone fights are uncommon and it's probably better for a drone to carry more optics, battery or a grenade than a net.
Second, a DJI Mavic 3 is 900g and the hunting drone would need to have that much spare lifting capacity.
Third, a captured drone is likely still transmitting telemetry to its operators, and so they might be able to gather intel to order a strike on the hunter drone's operators.
Fourth, a drone caught in a net is likely to damage props, motors and possibly electronic speed control circuitry. I learnt this the hard way when my cinewhoop sucked up a net curtain - but any sudden stop the spinning propellers can be bad. That damage is repairable, but it's still damage.
Double drone-bros, what does this mean?
Small drones are likely to feature more in future wars and anti-drone technology will undergo innovation. One possible anti-drone measure would be to use specialist drone-killer drones, probably powered by AI. A killer drone has the advantage that it can take down several targets in quick succession with a lower risk of collateral damage.
I hope you have found this article informative. I have been flying drones for a little over six months and am not an expert by any means, so any errors are my own. Have at me in the comments.
That was really expensive and I really don't think that this camera drone was affected.
However you definitely see that mavic 3 crashing.
Great info there.. I think we shall see more drones used in conflicts..
Thanks for the analysis. I wonder if there will be any more drone battles.
I think it's inevitable we'll see more drone vs drone combat. Small drones are finding increasing use in war and sometimes they're might be the only platform around that can take out another drone.
Whoa! Drone Wars! 😁😨👀
that's some expensive drones. I didn't realize drones were so diverse or used it these ways.. it's really cool and we'll probably see all this and much more in the drone world of the future! 😎🤙
This may be the firts robot fight in a history of war... i see is just matter of time to see armed robots if this war scalate bigger. I know bomber dones exist but i talk more about humanoid robot or dog robots with Guns and granades, i've see thems under development with IA and they are savages.
Ouch. Don't think that one will be flying again. It's very likely the sensors were turned off. Many folks flying any distance out in the open like that will put the drone into "sport" mode for faster travel speeds back and forth, which disables the sensors. Thanks for the post, interesting!
I don't know much about DJI. Can the drones hover in sport mode?
Yes, they are excellent starter drones or photography focused pilots without a lot of experience. Even their advanced FPV drones that allow all manual flight also have more "helper" starting modes available. They all do an excellent job of hovering and auto-correcting for light wind etc. on their own.
Super expensive but this camera wasn't affected though
Maybe scuffed and slight debris damage to a prop. In FPV we call these "trophies".
Okay yeah
Hi, @ganjafarmer - the article above is relevant to our shared interests.