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Bayraktar failed to provide close air support to Ukraine
FROM THE MEDIA: Russia does not dominate the unmanned aerial war in Ukraine, but the Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 cannot provide close air support as they are highly vulnerable to Russia’s air defenses, Kirsten Fontenrose and Andy Dreby said in their analysis. According to journalists, Turkish drones will not give Ukraine the necessary advantage. There are several reasons. Time is a key factor. In Turkey, the production cycle of Bayraktar TB2 is slow, which means that Ankara cannot provide the required amount to Ukraine on time. Also, even if the Ukrainians operate well with Turkish drones, it will still take time to be “involved in the events on the ground.” With the onset of spring, the Ukrainian mud gradually disappears and the ground becomes hard. This will allow the Russians to move faster. Bayraktar TB2 has been used successfully in Libya to deliver precision strikes, but we must not forget one indisputable fact – they have failed in providing close air support for ground traffic, as the system is still vulnerable to air defense. Yes, in Syria and Libya, Turkish drones have severely damaged the Pantsir-S1 mobile air defense system, but Russia is not using that system in Ukraine. The inability of Bayraktar TB2 to provide the necessary air support is evident in the following fact: 39 downed and lost Bayraktar TB2 drones were reported in Libya, eight in Syria, and three in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and those shot down by Russians in Ukraine are still being counted.
READ THE STORY: Bulgarian Military
French Regulator Claims Russia Is Jamming Commercial Aircraft Satellite Navigation
FROM THE MEDIA: According to DGAC, Russian military equipment used to block GPS-guided missiles is to blame for ongoing commercial GPS issues over the Baltic Sea. According to France’s civil aviation authority (DGAC), Russian military equipment used to guard against GPS-guided missiles is to blame for issues with commercial satellite navigation near Finland, which have been ongoing since early March. Speaking to Bloomberg, Head of Satellite Navigation at DGAC, Benoit Roturier, noted that while there have been no severe in-flight incidents due to backup measures, pilots experiencing an episode must deal with cockpit alerts that can become distracting. The incident is not the first of its kind; in 2018, 60 airlines reported hundreds of partial or complete losses of satellite navigation systems, coinciding with a large-scale NATO exercise in Northern Norway, as reported by the BBC. Roturier attributes Russia to the 2018 incidents as part of military support for Syria.
READ THE STORY: Simple Flying
CSIR-NAL’s new solar-powered UAV can help border surveillance, improve communications
FROM THE MEDIA: At Wings India 2022 civil aviation event last month, organization demonstrated functional, sub-scale model that runs on solar power during day & high-density lithium ion batteries at night. From carrying out under-the-radar border surveillance, to improving internet access to remote corners of the country, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Aerospace Laboratories’ (CSIR-NAL’s) futuristic solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) could soon make India one of the few elite nations to have its own High Altitude Platforms (HAP). At the Wings India 2022 civil aviation event held last month in Hyderabad, NAL demonstrated a functional, sub-scale model of the HAP — an unmanned flying vehicle that runs on solar power during the day and high-density lithium ion batteries at night. The lightweight UAV is capable of flying at heights of over 22 kilometres, for up to 90 days, with payloads of over 16 to 20 kilograms. Speaking to ThePrint, Jitendra Jadhav, Director of NAL, explained that the HAP will work as a pseudo satellite for telecommunication applications in the 5G & 6G spectrum. “As much as 40 per cent of rural India still does not have access to high speed internet,” Jadhav said. “The HAP provides a low cost alternative to launching satellites or setting up towers,” he said. He added: “The vehicle can be relaunched after 90 days.”
READ THE STORY: The Print
The chip challenge: Keeping Western semiconductors out of Russian weapons
FROM THE MEDIA: When Silicon Valley chipmaker Marvell learned that one of its chips was found in a Russian surveillance drone recovered in 2016, it set out to investigate how that came to be. The chip, which costs less than $2, was shipped in 2009 to a distributor in Asia, which sold it to another broker in Asia, which later went out of business. “We couldn’t trace it any further,” Marvell Technology Group Ltd Chief Operations Officer Chris Koopmans said in a recent interview. Years later, it reappeared in the drone recovered in Lithuania. Marvell’s experience is one of a myriad of examples of how chipmakers lack ability to track where many of their lower-end products end up, executives and experts said. That could stymie the enforcement of new U.S. sanctions designed to halt the export of U.S. technology into Russia. While higher-end sophisticated chips that can build supercomputers are sold directly to companies, lower-cost commodity ones that might just control the power often go through several resellers before they end up in a gadget. The global chip industry is expected to ship 578 billion chips this year, 64% of them “commodity” chips, said TechInsights’ chip economist Dan Hutcheson. While Russia accounted for less than 0.1% of global chip purchases before the sanctions, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization, new Western sanctions underscore the threat in human terms.
READ THE STORY: The Hindu
What are the Benefits of Spraying Agricultural Fields with Drone? How to Spray with Drone?
FROM THE MEDIA: Agricultural spraying, which is one of the most difficult applications of agricultural production, has an important role in the fight against diseases and pests. However, if it is not applied correctly, this practice, which has both benefits and harms, can endanger both people's health and natural life. The effectiveness of pesticide application, which depends on many factors such as dosage, application method and time, use of protective work equipment, season and weather conditions, also closely concerns the health of the applicator who is constantly exposed to agricultural pesticides. As in many areas of life, drone models offer fast, practical and economical agricultural spraying solutions that will protect both nature and human health in the field of agricultural production.
What are the Benefits of Spraying with Drone?
The use of spraying drones, which is becoming more and more widespread day by day, brings many different advantages in economic and ecological terms. Effective results in drone spraying applications made by agricultural engineers, technical staff, farmers, local authorities and agricultural input producers accelerate the transition of new users to this technology. Produced with different technical features for different targets and purposes, drone types successfully fulfill their duties in every region of our country and in every crop type. On the other hand, spraying applications with professional drones allow much less pesticide to be applied to a much larger area by spraying continuously and equally. Unmanned aerial vehicle technology is a unique aid for farmers, helping to reduce the use of agrochemicals, avoid the constant exposure of applicators to pesticides, and prevent farmers from suffering economic losses.
READ THE STORY: Railly News
What is Agricultural Drone? What are the Uses of Agricultural Drones?
FROM THE MEDIA: Agricultural drone is a multi-functional unmanned aerial vehicle that is mostly used for optimization of yield, monitoring of crop development level, irrigation capacity and efficiency, combating diseases and pests and plant feeding in agricultural operations. Aerial view provided by agricultural drone; It enables real-time information on crop growth stages, crop health and soil variations. Thanks to high-resolution snapshots and infrared scanning images obtained from agricultural areas monitored during the vegetation process of the planted product, emergency measures can be taken when necessary and yield loss can be prevented. At the same time, spraying drone models with liquid tanks of different volumes allow the application of pesticides or plant nutrients in a short time and with high efficiency without harming human health. Designed and produced to withstand the harsh physical conditions of agricultural lands, the unmanned aerial vehicle models have also been specially strengthened against the corrosive effects of pesticides and fertilizers. Agricultural spraying drone models, which have different flight ranges thanks to their changing battery capacities, can provide uninterrupted service in large agricultural lands thanks to their changing liquid tank capacities. Professional drone models, designed for different agricultural usage purposes, offer modular solutions to meet the changing needs of producers operating in the field of agricultural production. Before choosing between drone models, it is important to have information about the types of drones and the areas of use in which they are active.
READ THE STORY: Railly News
Drone footage shows everything going on inside Tesla's Berlin Gigafactory
FROM THE MEDIA: Drone videos of Tesla's factories have become quite popular over the years. There's this brilliant perspective on Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada and this look at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai, China, and many more. But there's something particularly cool about the latest drone clip provided by Tesla and that is the fact that it was actually taken inside the Tesla Gigafactory in Berlin. The 2-minute video gives us an inside exclusive through the heart of the swanky and busy new factory. It's shot so smoothly that we venture a guess that it is likely guided by an extremely capable drone pilot. The pilot's identity is not revealed but the company responsible for the footage is Skynamic, the same drone company that posted Elon Musk’s new dance video with a drone. The video is not to be missed as it begins all the way outside of the factory showing footage of parked Tesla vehicles. The drone then carefully and skilfully swoops through a door inside the factory and proceeds to fly through the tight assembly lines. It moves so precisely as to not hit or interact with any of the busy robotic arms that are doing their jobs. The end result is a clip that shows exactly how a Tesla assembly line works.
READ THE STORY: Interesting Engineering
GOOGLE DRONES DELIVERING TO TRADIES ON SITE
FROM THE MEDIA: Google Wing drones are now delivering supplies to tradies on worksites in Logan, Queensland. Jesse Suskin, the business’ head of government relations, said while builders don’t often forget their power tools, they can call upon Wing’s devices to fetch things such as painter’s tape. “We have a hardware store we deliver from. As long as the product weighs what it does and fits in the box, we can deliver it.” Wing launched commercially in Canberra and Logan in 2019 and currently allows for the delivery of packages that weigh less than 1.5 kilograms from a variety of shops that sell household and perishable goods, including coffees and sandwiches. The business now conducts more deliveries in Australia than in any other country and has previously dubbed Logan the “drone delivery capital of the world”. “There’s a worksite in Queensland where they’re building a series of homes,” said Suskin. “We’re not delivering to the homes, we’re delivering to the people who are building the homes. “We’re delivering their tools and hardware when they run out of something or their food during lunch. We didn’t originally think we’d be moving hammers and screws with drones! “We had a customer reach out who runs a landscaping business, and they constantly ran out of the Whipper Snapper line. So we stock that now.”
READ THE STORY: Australian Aviation
An elite Ukrainian drone unit on quad bikes ambushed Russian forces, helping to defeat Putin's plan to capture Kyiv
FROM THE MEDIA: Night ambushes carried out by a team of Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes have helped turn the tide of the Russian invasion, The Guardian reported. Aerorozvidka is a specialist air-reconnaissance unit within the Ukrainian army, which has claimed to have destroyed dozens of Russian "priority targets," including tanks and command trucks. The unit's commander, Lt Col Yaroslav Honchar, told The Guardian about an ambush near the Ukrainian town of Ivankiv, which helped stop a 40-mile mechanized Russian column heading to attack the capital Kyiv. Equipped with night-vision goggles, sniper rifles, and remotely detonated mines and drones, the team of about 30 Ukrainian soldiers approached Russian forces by riding on quad bikes through forests under cover of night. Some of the drones used by the unit were equipped with thermal imaging cameras, and others were capable of dropping small 1.5kg bombs. "This one little unit in the night destroyed two or three vehicles at the head of this convoy, and after that, it was stuck. They stayed there two more nights and [destroyed] many vehicles," Honchar told The Guardian. After the attack, Russian forces re-strategized by breaking the column into smaller units to try and continue towards the capital. However, the same team mounted an attack on the Russians' supply depot, which stopped them from being able to advance, Honchar told The Guardian.
READ THE STORY: Yahoo News
The ROI of Drone Technology in Infrastructure, Transportation and at Airports
FROM THE MEDIA: Inspecting pieces of infrastructure, means of transportation like rails and at airports with drones can create efficiencies in multiple ways. It’s easy enough to call out these efficiencies as being faster, cheaper or safer than traditional approaches, but what does it mean to turn thousands of photos into actionable information? How can these efficiencies be measured in terms of an ROI? Jarno de Jong from GEO INFRA and Jonas Stjernberg from Robots.expert moderated two panels during Amsterdam Drone Week to outline these specifics and much more. Tsjerk Koolstra from Dutch Drone Company kicked off the first session by details how his company has used drones for onshore, offshore and confined space projects. He shared details about the John Frost Bridge inspection which saw DDC use several types of drones to inspect all areas of the bridge, including underneath the deck and pillars. Using a drone kept traffic from being disrupted and with the data collected by the drone they were able to create a digital twin that can now be remotely accessed. With it, people can avoid physically being at the location, saving money and reducing the risk of people working on scaffolds.
READ THE STORY: Commercial UAV News
The UK has spent up to £1bn on drones to prevent migrant crossings
FROM THE MEDIA: The UK government has spent more than a billion pounds on surveillance technology in the past five years, including a contract worth up to £1bn on drones to spot migrants crossing the English Channel. Critics warn that using drone surveillance to deter illegal human trafficking “makes no sense from an economic perspective”. The Home Office has spent more than £1bn on surveillance technologies including drones and “near real-time” situational awareness platforms in the last five years, according to analysis of procurement data by Tech Monitor. The largest contract was won by Tekever, a Portuguese defence technology company which specialises in unmanned aircraft systems. In 2019, the company was awarded a three-year contract worth up to £1bn by the Home Office “to enhance maritime awareness”. This contract is set to end on 30 September this year. The contract does not specify precisely how the technology is used, but at last year's Defence and Security Equipment International conference in London, Tekever’s UK managing director Paul Webb revealed that the Home Office uses its products for migrant surveillance. “Every day, dozens of asylum seekers and refugees set off on the dangerous journey across the English Channel to reach British soil, but small boats and treacherous conditions mean many lives are in danger along the way,” he said. “We are proud to be a partner of UK authorities in fighting this kind of illegal human traffic. Drones can identify humans in distress in a much faster way and help rescue teams.”
READ THE STORY: Techmonitor
Items of interest
Have Russia’s Killer Drones Flopped In Ukraine Or Is Putin’s Deliberately Holding Back Deadly UAVs? (Video)
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, drones were expected to play a huge role in combat. Experts believed Russia’s fleet of “killer robots” were likely to be a very potent weapon. However, even as the war entered its second month, Russian drones have hardly been seen on the battlefield.
Hitting drones with Thor's hammer (Video)
FROM THE MEDIA: How do you protect your base from a drone swarm? Take inspiration from the God of Thunder and zap them en masse.
About this Product
These open source products are reviewed from analysts at InfoDom Securities and provide possible context about current media trends in regard to the realm of cyber security. The stories selected cover a broad array of cyber threats and are intended to aid readers in framing key publicly discussed threats and overall situational awareness. InfoDom Securities does not specifically endorse any third-party claims made in their original material or related links on their sites, and the opinions expressed by third parties are theirs alone. Contact InfoDom Securities at dominanceinformation@gmail.com
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