this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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  • UK-made, invisible radio wave weapon knocks out drone swarms for the first time.
  • Weapon has potential to help protect against drone threats as nature of warfare changes.
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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago (5 children)

"invisible radio wave"

Whed have radio waves not been invisible to the naked eye?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In the beta test of Earth. Luckily they realised how much that fucks with us and reverted the change.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

this makes me nostalgic for r/outside.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

What? You don’t have Doppler vision? Pffff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Light is also an electromagnetic wave, just like radio

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I think it was just emphasizing that it's an invisible weapon, not quantifying.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I hope you know them all, man

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh, you didn't have to edit your comment. I was joking and didn't meant to shame you. It's good for building vocab for us ESLs so I did appreciate it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I just edited it to fix a typo (emohasizing)

[–] dmalteseknight 1 points 1 day ago

I am assuming undetectable waves. That is the enemy won't know where the waves are being fired from or even that they are being fired at all.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

So when can we start shipping them to Ukraine? Even from a selfish perspective its a perfect environment to field test this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I would imagine that a demonstration unit has already been sent

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Warzone's always the best environment to test new battlefield systems.

Look at the difference in technology between the beginning of the first world war and the end. We started off with essentially standing in fields shooting each other over distances you could spit, and ended up with tanks. The second world war gave us nukes.

Will probably have AGI battle droids by the end of this war.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Nah, interesting point from Issac Arthur that the dumbest AI always wins assuming both are complex enough to do the job, the dumb one will have less processing delay to make each decision.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is massive. Hope the detail leak so we can use this in the revolution.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

Step 1: take the magnetron out of a microwave oven

Step 2: ...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

UK tech is always invented by weirdo boffins in a shed so they already told everyone in the local how it works.

[–] [email protected] 153 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Much better than those visible radio waves.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 days ago (28 children)

Also known as "light", as used in Lasers, which also works to knock down drones.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Radio waves are a specific wavelength/band of the EM spectrum. Light is not radio waves, just as radiowaves aren't light. Microwaves are another specific wavelength.

They're both electromagnetic waves.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Infrared lasers aren't visible. They're still higher frequency than radio waves. To say that visible light is visible radio is to say that the sky is green, just that it's predominantly blue coloured green.

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[–] andybytes 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Everyones got this... It was obvious

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

This isn't just jamming signals, it's microwaving the electronics from a kilometer away so it will work against fibre optic controlled drones as well

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It uses high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction.

At a range of 1km…

That‘s useful not just for drones. I wonder if this works against helicopters, too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Seriously this! People don't understand that even hobby drones at a certain price point have robust rf shielding.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

More like: That could be useful, just not for (perhaps many) drones.

1km isn't that far - the drones that were used for surveillance of Minneapolis protests in 2020 were around 6km up.

If they needed to get close for some reason, would a 1km deterrent be countered enough by approaching from directly above and using gravity for the last km?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

The drones used in Ukraine are basically just commercial drones with grenades strapped to them. And a 1 km distance they're unlikely to be able to damage a target even if they detonated.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

It sounds like it's a directed microwave cooker. Works on people too, just not ones behind good cover.

Edit: ah, high frequency, my bad, it's a gamma gun. Same principles apply I think, give or take the cover.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They are definitely not blasting gamma rays to bring down drones lol. "radio" is a specific range of frequencies so "high frequency radio" is just frequencies at the higher end of that specific range.

Gamma rays are insanely dangerous. I'm too lazy to do calculations/research to back this up but I suspect that gamma rays intense enough to reliably drop a drone would also give cancer/radiation poisoning to anyone remotely downrange (and also the operators). Furthermore, I don't think we have a way to produce gamma rays in any high intensity in the lab. matter-antimatter annihilation and fusion bombs are the only way I know of for humans to produce gamma rays. The former can only be done at atomic scale in the lab and the latter is, well, I guess that also destroys drones (and everything else within 100km)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

High frequency radio is still below the visible part of the spectrum, gamma is waaay above it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Tech Ingredients YT channel made a diy microwave directed energy device to disrupt consumer drones.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Anybody know if it has a phased array antenna? a) those are cool b) they can aim much faster than an antenna that needs to physically pivot

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