Ukraine’s defense industry is developing interceptor drone swarms to better protect its territory from massive Russian aerial attacks.
The development work marks a major next step for interceptor drones, which have emerged over the past year as a top defense priority for Ukraine, given their low cost and scalability.
Brave1, a Ukrainian government-backed innovation driver that helps the country’s booming defense industry create and refine new weaponry, told Business Insider that multiple companies in its cluster are working on swarm technology.
The desired swarm function could include both enabling a single operator to control multiple interceptor drones at once — locally and remotely — and allowing drones to communicate with each other independently during flight. Brave1 said that the former of these two scenarios is closer to fruition and scaled combat application.
Ukrainian operators use interceptor drones to hunt Russian strike and reconnaissance drones. They are armed with small warheads and fly directly into their targets or explode nearby to destroy them midair.
Typically, a pilot will control only a single interceptor drone, which can cost as little as $1,200. The Russian drones, by contrast, are estimated to cost between $10,000 and $100,000, depending on their function.
Interceptor drones have become a critical layer in Ukraine’s air defense umbrella amid worsening Russian aerial attacks and have surged in popularity since last year. Kyiv can now produce at least 2,000 every day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in mid-March.
This scale of production is crucial as Ukraine faces regular Russian attacks on cities and critical infrastructure that sometimes involve hundreds of drones in one night. Last week, Moscow’s forces launched nearly 1,000 drones over a 24-hour period.
Brave1 would not disclose how far along the interceptor drone swarm development is, but it said it is testing and developing components that, when fully brought online together, will enable this new technology.
These components include communications between the drone and ground control stations, as well as between drones; positioning and navigation; target detection and recognition; and terminal guidance, among other aspects.
A representative for Wild Hornets, the Ukrainian manufacturer of the popular Sting interceptor, told Business Insider that they consider drone swarms a distant technology. “What is available now is a primitive algorithm that is ineffective in combat.”
Brave1 said that the goal is to maximize intercept efficiency to the point where a single interceptor drone can bring down a single target. There are times, though, the organization added, when it makes sense to launch multiple interceptors, especially given the massive air attacks Ukraine is experiencing.
Brave1 said it aims to enable fully autonomous interceptions while keeping humans in the targeting loop, easing pilots’ workload rather than replacing them.
The success of interceptor drones in Ukraine has caught the attention of the US and its allies, who are looking into low-cost air defense solutions to meet the rising global drone threat without having to expend multimillion-dollar missiles.
This dilemma has been front and center in the Middle East in recent weeks as Iranian forces have launched thousands of strike drones at its regional neighbors. Several Gulf states have sought Ukraine’s help in dealing with the ongoing attacks.
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