"Realistically, I doubt there’s ANY system out there will be able to counter small weaponized drones that are flown manually "
Why would lasers not work?
Those cheap drones are made from plastic, if you have a laser powerful enough and a target guidance system (like a camera and a PI) - then you would just need enough of them.
At long distances the small cross section of the drone requires tight focusing (expensive optics) or a high power, preferably pulsed laser (expensive laser) or both.
Not impossible but many times more expensive than the drone
Expensive is fine since it is reusable.
At some point it itself becomes a target. It has to be able to get almost 100% kills, otherwise the enemy can swarm it with cheap drones, destroy the expensive installation, then continue as before.
Sure, but it needs many "many times" for that to be a factor.
And even in the case it could be useful as an addition to or paired with a tank etc.
Many times more is about what it comes out to. There are some companies selling laser defense systems but they are many times more than cheap FPV drones with grenades attached.
The practicalities of using lasers are covered in some depth on the Naval Gazing blog. First part here:
https://www.navalgazing.net/Lasers-at-Sea-Part-1
At very short distances and with a lot of power, perhaps. Despite what we see in movies laser beams diverge. And then with distance it’s harder to track moving objects precisely to hit the same spot long enough to melt it.
At that point might as well spend the money to use a kinetic weapon with basic tracking and ballistic calculations.
Kinetic weapons pose greater risk to bystanders.
Powerful enough laser and accurate enough targeting system is easy to say, but not easypeasy to do. Dumping thousands of Joules on a tiny moving target is much easier to do with explosives.
Lasers imo don't really have IRL advantages over machine guns and rockets, and their line of sight nature is a huge limitation.
Laser:
- are cheap to shoot - do not fall on someones head if they miss (unlike firing bullets and rockets at a drone that will come down again) - do hit the target immediately if aimed right
Problems with lasers are, cooling, power consumption limiting mobile use - and indeed targeting and fog and clouds.
And rain.
Lasers won’t effectively work, it’s a two part equation, detection and targeting. To neutralize a target using a ground-based laser, you need an enormous power, and still it won’t penetrate a high distance/altitude in the sky, environment factors also to be considered. The detection part is even harder, these small 8in drones are almost impossible to detect unless you can hear it, aka it’s over, because they can fly at 250km/h, too small to be visually detected, acoustic sensors will fail to detect them, and radar will miss it as a false negative since it’s the size of a bird. I have seen some systems trying to combine all that to detect them plus AI for flying pattern detection, but they are far from being reliable in practical applications.
8 inches drone cannot carry much of explosive at all. In order to dump 10 kg load of explosives, you need an “agricultural drone” one that can carry 45kg, since the additional mechanisms and their batteries (and the drone’s backup batteries) are heavy.
Those are bigger and noisier.
DJI ARGAS Series are good starting point.
https://ag.dji.com/mobile
Last week I was flying the argas! But I think you are misunderstanding, these are suicide drones not dropping the payload kind, and 8in can very well carry a deadly explosive, mostly against personnel, vehicles ones you get it bigger but not by much, from 12-18in max.
I see.
Nowadays I fly nothing, but I do see them Iranian drones get intercepted from my porch in Abu Dhabi.
The fact I am watching it and not panicking anymore tells about how cooked I am.
Unless you mean it just can't detect objects that small, my guess is we'll see things calibrate toward a lot more birds being cooked in active war zones vs drones with explosives being let through.
Can radar distinguish from the bird since it’s moving 250km/h?
The small weaponized drones do not fly 250 km/h.
Yes, but they still approach in just a few seconds.
They can fly at 350kph, check this redbull drone that was used in Olympics, acceleration of 100-300kph in just two seconds faster than any F1 car. Now add a bit of payload and you get the 200-250 speed range, still crazy fast.
https://www.redbull.com/id-id/worlds-fastest-filming-drone-b...