Zelenskyy states Russia lost battlefield initiative in Dec 2025, arguing Ukraine has a diplomacy window before winter if sanctions pressure on Russia continues.
There are weapons that use sensor fusion already, with computer vision being used mostly on the offensive side. The issue for fixed defensive emplacements is that the attack drones are quite fast, and small for their lethality. The fusion is built off radar, acoustic (sound) and visible spectrum, but isn’t reliable and only recently portable. Humans (which have excellent sensing capability) have been in the loop with aimed jammers, and this has become standard equipment at the platoon level.
Timely detection is hard, and the interception is tricky too. Costly interceptors work better than bullets, and can protect a larger area, but even a 95% interception range isn’t super effective, as we saw with some of the $1b radomes lost by US Forces this year.
Personally, I think we’ve sadly only seen the start of autonomous, self-guided ‘suicide’ drones. These are the weapons that terrify me. Not accountable, cheap, and they can easily be turned against civilian infrastructure. Computer vision is robust, but shrinking the sensor + decision maker still needs work (at least, thats what the unclassified info tells me)
Yeah definitely scary - once you can mass produce drones or combat robots in the millions they become weapons of mass destruction.
I still imagine robots shooting normal caliber guns far better than soldiers can would be a game changer. There was this article about Iran simply producing massively cheaper and that is why they won the war, and overwhelm the expensive toys and defenses of the US. Just state owned weapon manufacturing with long term stability in planning. So if you can take down a drone with 100 bullets it’s going to be cheaper than 1 expensive interceptor drone.
There are weapons that use sensor fusion already, with computer vision being used mostly on the offensive side. The issue for fixed defensive emplacements is that the attack drones are quite fast, and small for their lethality. The fusion is built off radar, acoustic (sound) and visible spectrum, but isn’t reliable and only recently portable. Humans (which have excellent sensing capability) have been in the loop with aimed jammers, and this has become standard equipment at the platoon level.
Timely detection is hard, and the interception is tricky too. Costly interceptors work better than bullets, and can protect a larger area, but even a 95% interception range isn’t super effective, as we saw with some of the $1b radomes lost by US Forces this year.
Personally, I think we’ve sadly only seen the start of autonomous, self-guided ‘suicide’ drones. These are the weapons that terrify me. Not accountable, cheap, and they can easily be turned against civilian infrastructure. Computer vision is robust, but shrinking the sensor + decision maker still needs work (at least, thats what the unclassified info tells me)
Yeah definitely scary - once you can mass produce drones or combat robots in the millions they become weapons of mass destruction.
I still imagine robots shooting normal caliber guns far better than soldiers can would be a game changer. There was this article about Iran simply producing massively cheaper and that is why they won the war, and overwhelm the expensive toys and defenses of the US. Just state owned weapon manufacturing with long term stability in planning. So if you can take down a drone with 100 bullets it’s going to be cheaper than 1 expensive interceptor drone.