A brand new Russian drone could hibernate for long periods before assaulting targets.
The Joker FPV loitering munitions sleeps to cover from electronic countermeasures, in keeping with a Google translation of a report by the government-affiliated TASS news agency. The drone is being produced to help within the war against Ukraine, which is increasingly seeing using uncrewed aircraft.
“A tool for hibernating FPV drones of the Joker line and its top model, Ultimatum, was developed and implemented on the Central Design Bureau,” Dmitry Kuzyakin, the director general of Russia’s Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions, told TASS. “A drone with a hibernator can take up a position for an attack and literally go into hibernation for several weeks. On the air, a sleeping drone doesn’t present itself and attack.”
The Joker was designed to be placed on tall structures similar to constructing rooftops to attend for the fitting moment to attack, Kuzyakin said. Because the drone is pre-positioned near the battlefield, the time it takes to hit its goal is reduced to only a number of seconds. The drone can be less affected by various countermeasures.
“One FPV pilot can place after which get up and sequentially use as much as 15 sleeping drones,” Kuzyakin added.
The brand new Joker drone is a component of a growing trend toward drones on the battlefield. The skies over Ukraine are buzzing with uncrewed aircraft, and each side depend on inexpensive business drones to identify targets on the battlefield.
Russia has unleashed swarms of Shahed-136 drones—an Iranian-made loitering munition—and a recent attack by the craft was defeated by Ukranian air defenses. Russia has been buying the Shaheds from Iran, because it is having difficulty producing its munitions itself on account of Western sanctions.
Russia has also sent Orlan-10 drones to spy on and jam Ukrainian communications. The Orlan is made by an organization in Saint Petersburg for the Russian military, and has a sleek body that makes it hard to identify. It will probably take off and land with a catapult and a parachute.
Ukraine has fought back with Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones that may accurately blast Russian tanks and troops. It also uses U.S.-supplied Switchblade 300 drones, that are sufficiently small to slot in a backpack.
Ukraine has been using drones to strike deep into Russian territory. Two Ukrainian drones recently hit two non-residential buildings in Moscow.
The drones were “suppressed by electronic warfare means and crashed,” Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Telegram. “On the morning of July 24, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to launch a terrorist attack using two unmanned aerial vehicles against facilities on the territory of town of Moscow was thwarted.”