New Thoughts on the Widespread Use of Drones in the Russia-Ukraine War

Reflections on Ukraine and the Drone War

Air Superiority and Drone Attacks:

Our readers, who are not familiar with military terminology, know it. In modern wars, there are quite important concepts such as "Air Supremacy" and "Air Domination". In essence, these concepts describe the impending situation in the struggle for supremacy between the two air powers. An air force can dominate the dominion of the other, sometimes declare its dominance in a small or large area, or establish overwhelming dominance in the air, not even letting its opponent fly. In wars, the Air Force makes serious efforts to obtain air superiority and especially air dominance, and they strive to outdo the enemy.

The biggest criticism of the Russian air force on the Ukrainian battlefield was that it could not achieve air superiority in Ukraine, especially in the regions where the Russian army is located. It was clearly known before the war that the difference in both numerical and technological superiority between the two air forces was quite evident. However, the air forces and air defense elements of the two countries are based on the same technology and concepts. However, despite the presence of older and cumbersome systems in the Ukrainian inventory, the philosophy of education has undergone a radical change as the concept of mental preparation and use. This change was the biggest factor preventing the Russians from gaining air superiority.

Air Defense Systems:

I think we should see this clearly: The air defense forces, which have been classified as low, medium and high altitudes and organized in layers, have entered into a great challenge since the Cold War years. Because with the addition of new and "unexpected layers", the concept of air defense has become much more complex and chaotic. Let's start with an example.

We have witnessed the beginning of a drone-assisted military operation on the Ukrainian battlefield, let alone battalion forces, even up to the squadron level. A significant number of these are platforms derived from commercial or commercial drones/adapted to military needs.

Antitank grenades fitted with plastic tails, which are easily produced with 3D printers, have been successfully used to destroy countless Russian tanks and armored combat vehicles. Miniature bombs attached to even mini commercial drones have made them vulnerable to the Russian infantry in their positions with air attacks. In short, in today's wars, it has become necessary to define an air defense layer even for mini commercial derivative drones, as it is against MALE (Medium Altitude Long Stay in Air) SİHAs such as Bayraktar TB2. In other words, during the very low altitude, where we expect the barreled systems to dominate, the use of drones, which is more crowded and widespread than the barreled systems can cope with, has entered the agenda of the battlefields.

In this article, I want to focus on this emerging new field of air defense. In the article, I propose to do mental gymnastics together under two separate headings. The first is to use another detection and diagnostic sensor infrastructure instead of radar. Second, to support the infantryman with an inexpensive and portable system to defend himself against drones.

In order for the infantry to attack the enemy without fear while in contact with the enemy, it must first have weapons and equipment that can defend itself against enemy attacks.

Option 1:

Let's put ourselves in the position of a Russian infantryman on the Ukrainian theater of operations. Make it a battlefield where thousands of drones armed with miniature bombs can launch active strikes. The primary concern of the Russian army will be to detect these drones in the air without attacking them. How can we produce the easiest, most effective, affordable and fast solution to achieve this goal?

If we take the matter from the beginning, every Russian soldier naturally has the necessary sensor and processor. I mean cell phones, smart phones, which are the most common means of communication today.

Each of the newly released mobile phones has multiple and very high quality microphone assemblies. These microphones are not only used to transmit the speech of the owner of the phone to the other party. At the same time, these smartphones have many advanced capabilities such as listening to environmental ambient sound, transmitting sound to our ears through the speaker with the support of artificial intelligence in a way that eliminates the ambient noise. In addition, the detection thresholds of mobile phones are much higher than that of the human ear. They are also open to numerical filtering and software optimization to focus any purpose, as they are embedded in an intelligent platform.

I think that detecting these electric and propeller drones flying at low speeds in a battlefield is easily possible through smart mobile phones. Even with a single phone, it is possible to detect the direction where the drone is located/approaching. For this, while the necessary programming is done on mobile phones, solution sets that will not reduce the life of the phone battery of soldiers living in limited conditions in the field will gain importance. For this reason, it should be possible to listen and evaluate the environment with the phone in low processor usage mode with the screen off.

Option 2:

By using microphones facing in different directions, it is possible to predict from which direction the target is approaching. In particular, the use of "sniper/firearm location detection" systems emerges as a necessity. In fact, many domestic and national products have entered the Turkish army's inventory and/or are about to enter. Aselsan's KNATS and SEDA systems and Havelsan's ATEŞKES product set an example in this respect. Transvaro's TRV SD 500 and 1000 systems can also be used for this purpose. All these are known as systems that have been tried and proven in conflicts by the Turkish army.

With minor revisions to the software and communication point, it may be possible to determine the drone location much more remotely and more clearly with these systems. The data to be received can be transferred to the screen of the user in the field, either by military digital radio systems or by commercial products such as phones and tablets. Leveraging network-centric operations, so even a single private can have a strong defensive position and high situational awareness.

In fact, the infrastructure and experience of the Turkish defense industry, which produces these systems, can support the production of bluetooth sound bombs/speakers in small sizes for the Turkish army with the use of affordable MEMS components in the market. It is also possible to connect these new systems, which will contain a battery and a low-power microprocessor, to smart phones via bluetooth or a similar option.

Option 3:

Also, this should not be forgotten. If the smartphones of all soldiers in the unit can be synchronized with each other, a clear location detection and tracking can be achieved without the need for anything else. Because a geometric shape is created according to the location of the land, and the location, location, type, etc. of the drone can be determined by the differences between the microphone data. many aspects can be detected.

Let's assume that a customized wireless network infrastructure is set up for this. I propose a structure similar to wireless access points (Wireless Access Point), which shares the 4G or 5G GSM infrastructure, which it accesses with the same sim card, to many smart devices. Such a device that I am trying to describe can be developed and produced in a structure compatible with different data communication protocols based on military requirements. It can even be superimposed on a purpose-built computing/artificial intelligence power. Military networks such as TAFICS, TASMUS can also be accessed with either one- or two-way data communication filters.

Similar to these three options, more different solution sets can be developed. In this article, these three options are emphasized as examples in order to find an answer to the question of what can be done to meet the needs of the battlefield by making use of the developing technology.

Conclusion:

Looking at mobile phones from the military's perspective, the past decade has faced numerous drawbacks and privacy violations over the use of smartphones by privates. Geolocations have become known through pictures circulating on social media and communication platforms such as WhatsApp. Unconscious and careless use is known to everyone that mobile phones are/can be a good source of intelligence for enemy forces. Without this being ignored, it is necessary to be able to use the capabilities of mobile phones, which have become an integral part of every adult human, to resist enemy attacks.

We are moving towards an era where the distinction between military and civilian systems is becoming increasingly blurred and borders are being lifted. An age in which even your commercial programming ability can play an important role in the course of wars as an important military function that can change your destiny in war. Your ability to produce hardware in information processing and communication tools can enable you to acquire skills that you do not have or have not planned beforehand, in a timely manner. While it saves you time, it can increase your resistance power.

With the options we have put forward in this article, some suggestions regarding the detection and diagnosis part of a new type of drone warfare, a new air defense layer, have been brought to the agenda. These recommendations are for the sound layer moving much faster than the drone. These are systems that will provide meaningful and important data on many other aspects. The big data they will create has the potential to offer game-changing solutions to combat.