Russian acts targeting critical infrastructure, satellite signal interference paralyzing maritime and air navigation, and cognitive operations aimed at intimidating European societies are examples of Russian hybrid activities targeting the Baltic Sea region states.
The paper, “White Paper on Russian Acts of Sabotage and Subversion against Members of the Council of the Baltic Sea States,” can be downloaded here. Authors Filip Bryjka, Anna Maria Dyner and Aleksandra Kozioł are with the Polish Institute of International Relations.
The report explores GNSS signal disruptions in the Baltic Sea and how it affects the safety of maritime and air traffic.
Scale and Methods of Russian Operations
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has intensified its hybrid activities against NATO member states, particularly those that have most actively supported Ukrainian resistance. This group includes the members of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. It is against them that the vast majority of acts of diversion and sabotage recorded in Europe since February 2022 have been directed.
Russia deploys a full spectrum of tools against the region:
Acts of diversion and sabotage targeting critical infrastructure.
Border incidents: Violations of airspace and maritime borders.
GNSS signal disruptions (satellite radio transmissions), creating operational problems for maritime and air navigation.
Cognitive influence, aimed at causing measurable damage, testing state responses, and inducing a sense of growing threat among societies.
Recommendations: How to Counter Hybrid Threats?
The offensive nature of Russian actions demonstrates an intent to destabilize NATO and EU countries. Effective defense requires developing shared mechanisms:
Close cooperation among agencies: Ensuring a high level of situational awareness through the coordination of activities (at both national and international levels) among military and civilian intelligence, counterintelligence, border guard services, and the police.
A dedicated information exchange system: Leveraging the geographical proximity and potential of the CBSS states to quickly share threat data.
Unambiguous attribution of persuasions: Publicly naming Russia as the author of the attacks. A lack of clear attribution hinders coordinated preventive and retaliatory measures.
A catalog of best practices: Developing common rules for monitoring, reporting, and responding to known and repetitive Russian operational patterns.
The authors conclude that only a full spectrum of coherent measures taken by all states in the region, alongside NATO and EU structures, can effectively influence Russia and reduce the risk of future incidents.
The rapid growth of autonomous military systems is creating a new challenge for the defense industry, working to keep equipment operating when navigation becomes unreliable.
Across recent conflict zones and contested regions, GNSS disruption is affecting UAVs, loitering munitions, ISR platforms, maritime systems and autonomous ground vehicles.
“InfiniDome is expanding its vision beyond GNSS protection, toward a future of mission continuity and navigation awareness in contested environments,” the company stated.
The statement reflects a broader trend across the defense autonomy sector. While anti-jamming technologies were once treated primarily as protective add-ons, many military programs are now integrating navigation resiliency into wider autonomy architectures. The result is a growing shift in how autonomous systems are evaluated.
Rather than focusing solely on navigation accuracy or platform performance, defense organizations are increasingly asking whether autonomous systems can maintain operational continuity under degraded or denied conditions. Industry observers note that this transition is particularly evident in the loitering munition and tactical UAV sectors, where survivability in contested environments is becoming a baseline operational requirement.
At the same time, low-SWaP anti-jamming capabilities are becoming more common across the market, increasing pressure on companies to differentiate beyond hardware alone. That pressure appears to be accelerating a broader industry movement toward what some describe as “navigation awareness,” the ability not only to withstand interference, but also to understand and react to the electromagnetic environment in real time.
InfiniDome is expected to demonstrate this direction during the exhibition through IroNav, developed jointly with Wonder Robotics. The demonstration will include autonomous operation streamed live from a jammed environment in Israel, showcasing navigation resilience capabilities under active interference conditions.
The live demonstration comes as European defense programs continue increasing investments in autonomy, tactical drones, and resilient battlefield systems amid growing concerns surrounding electronic warfare and GNSS vulnerability.
The new autopilot is engineered to provide reliable GNSS‑denied navigation and fully autonomous mission execution, including complex operational scenarios and seamless interoperability.
UAV Navigation — a division of Grupo Oesía specializing in advanced guidance, navigation and control solutions for unmanned vehicles — has launched the Vector-300high‑performance autopilot.
Vector-300 is designed to meet the industrial and operational requirements of mass‑produced, attritable unmanned aerial systems, with a clear focus on loitering munition and Counter-UAS (C-UAS) interceptor applications.
Vector‑300 has been engineered to combine advanced autonomous guidance, navigation and control (GNC) capabilities with scalability and manufacturability. Its architecture is designed to reduce technical complexity and enable agile, large‑scale production while ensuring consistent and reliable performance across high‑volume deployments.
Designed for high‑dynamic interception and terminal missions, Vector‑300 delivers strike‑to‑target precision guidance with bull’s eye accuracy. The autopilot supports the integration of AI‑based target identification and optical data directly into its autonomous GNC loops, enabling advanced engagement of both static and dynamic targets. This architecture supports real‑time trajectory adaptation during pursuit and terminal engagement phases, making Vector‑300 suitable for demanding loitering munition and C-UAS interceptor operations.
Vector‑300 is designed to operate in highly contested and GNSS‑denied environments, even under electronic warfare (EW) jamming, spoofing and meaconing. Its robust navigation core relies on advanced inertial algorithms and multisensor fusion to ensure mission continuity across all phases of operation and can be easily complemented with UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía proprietary solutions such as the Visual Navigation System to enhance dead‑reckoning accuracy.
Building on the battlefield-proven capabilities of the Vectorautopilot family, Vector‑300 enables the full range of advanced operations already established across UAV Navigation–Grupo Oesía solutions. These include
fully autonomous mission execution
swarming and formation flight
4D trajectory management to reach targets at a predefined time
high‑dynamic maneuvers
manned‑unmanned teaming (MUT) operations
many other advanced autonomous capabilities.
Its open and modular architecture is designed to ensure interoperability with third‑party platforms, payloads and sensors through seamless integration with Vector‑MCC. This architecture also enables the integration of autonomous decision‑making software, allowing platforms equipped with Vector‑300 to adapt to evolving concepts of operation and advanced autonomy requirements.
It’s always good news when we hear about NASA’s “out-of-this-world” next steps toward building a replacement for Ingenuity, the small Mars helicopter-drone. With 72 flights over 1,004 days, Ingenuity outlived NASA’s expectation of just 30 operational days on Mars. It ended up serving as a trailblazer for the SUV-sized Perseverance rover as it worked its way around Jezero Crater. Built with a large number of smartphone components, it’s actually amazing that this thing survived for so long, given the radiation environment on the surface of Mars, along with the harsh temperature extremes of daytime 32°F to nighttime minus 130°F. How a Samsung S5 phone battery survived, operating so far outside its design temperature range, is hard to fathom.
NASA’s 20-year plan for future Mars exploration now looks to take advantage of the huge expansion of the envelope for exploration that the small 30-day Mars helicopter brought to the Perseverance mission: “Enhanced mobility systems will enable exploration of challenging terrains and increased operational range. Aerial mobility technologies will facilitate access to previously unreachable areas on Mars.”
NASA drone flies over Mars Hill in Death Valley during recent navigation tests. (Photo: NASA/JPL)
So now NASA is working on the next Mars rover mission and on improvements for its accompanying airborne support. A team recently took three commercial drones into Death Valley to work on overcoming navigation problems that Ingenuity encountered on Mars flying over “bland” terrain with few visual features for its optical navigation system. Sand dunes without features on Mars messed with Ingenuity’s navigation solution, including on its 72nd flight.
Death Valley and Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes were two places the NASA team visited to test improved navigation algorithms installed on existing commercial drones, and they found some improvements by adding camera filters. The new software helped find landing spots in cluttered terrain.
But now new initiatives are seeking ways to get crewed flights to Mars in the next couple of years, well ahead of NASA’s timetable, which doesn’t move to anything crewed until around 2030. NASA still seems to prefer to pursue landers to gather much more data on Mars before risking crewed flights. Robotic dogs are also being investigated that can traverse rugged uphill areas that landers cannot access, as well as a winged glider the size of a small school bus.
Meanwhile, the never-ending Russia-Ukraine war rages on, dominated by drone attacks from both sides. Russia is increasingly using Iranian Shahed or the equivalent Russian-produced Geran-2 one-way drones, while Ukraine intercepts them with low-end modified commercial drones. This stalemate has $20,000 Geran-2 drones being brought down by high-speed interceptor drones built for $2,000 to $6,000 — in other words, the cost of attrition might determine the victor.
Russian Geran-3 jet-powered drone downed by Ukraine. (Photo: DIU)
However, Russia has now introduced a jet-powered Geran-3 model that flies at up to 230 mph, which Ukraine has apparently been able to bring down.
As we well know, Ukraine not only regularly receives Western military equipment but also civilian drones in large numbers. But an industrial capability has also been created in Ukraine to design, develop and build high volumes of drones. So it’s not surprising that Ukraine has revealed its own interceptor drone known as Sting.
STING interceptor drone and imagery striking a Shahed drone. (Photo: Wild Hornets Group)
Nevertheless, Sting has four rotor props and should be no match for a Geran-3 flying at top speed, even though Sting is claimed to be capable of 215 mph. The Russian jet-powered drone also apparently comes with anti-jam capabilities and a satellite navigation system, but Russia has yet to field these new drones in large numbers. Of course, Ukraine says it has already developed jet-powered interceptor drones — so the step up to the next level of technology should happen for both sides, but of course, costs increase for both sides, which neither can really afford.
Defense has always affected the speed of development for any technology — government funding and oversight are major incentives for new companies to emerge and for new technologies to be developed. Anduril Industries has recently emerged as a new entrant to the U.S. industrial defense complex, specializing in autonomous systems. Anduril’s products include unmanned aircraft systems and counter-UAS, and they have made big strides in both areas.
Anduril is a relatively new company, initially founded in 2017, so its products are fresh off the drawing board and its product improvement experience is at best eight years. The big U.S. defense contractors have fielded and corrected decades of problems in their high-tech systems, so new generations come with hard-learned design and build understanding. The advantage for Anduril is that they are not bound by the restrictions of a long-established industrial heritage, but this can also mean they may still have a way to go in learned experience.
Nevertheless, in high technology, much is new technology and new software and new approaches to build. So it takes effort to not only make this stuff work but also to make it work reliably.
Anduril builds lots of test articles and rapidly evolves the design through rigorous internal and real-world testing. So it’s not uncommon to see test failures — this is how improvements are developed.
Recent U.S. defense tests that saw crashes at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida drew a lot of bad press, given that the Altius drone had already been battle-tested in Ukraine. However, if the approach of lower cost, high volume and attritable drones is the one we have chosen, it may take a little more time to get maturity into the beast.
Navigation testing for NASA’s next Mars drone, jet-powered attack drones, and evolving interceptor defenses and drones from a new player on the U.S. defense scene — a pretty wide range of unmanned aircraft applications.
The European Commission plans to expand its drone wall on Europe’s eastern borders because some regions said they felt left out after an initial “wall”, reports Reuters. The idea is to counter drone incursions with a network of sensors, electronic jamming systems and weapons stretching from the Baltic states to the Black Sea.
The European Drone Defence Initiative proposal is included in the commission’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 issued Oct. 16. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed the drone wall after 20 Russian drones entered the airspace of EU and NATO member Poland in September.
Eastern European states welcomed her proposal, but countries in southern and western Europe said it neglected drone threats in their part of the continent.
Locus Lock, a leader in software-defined GNSS technology for precise position, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions, has teamed up with General Dynamics Mission Systems to deliver software-defined precise PNT capabilities for the U.S. Army.
General Dynamics Mission Systems, a provider of mission-critical solutions to defense, intelligence, and cyber-security customers across all domains, brings extensive expertise in mission-critical systems integration to ensure seamless deployment across Army platforms.
Locus Lock’s software-defined GNSS technology enables rapid deployment and procurement of advanced multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS capabilities, providing essential signal diversity in contested radiofrequency (RF) environments to advance the Army’s modernization objectives.
The collaboration with Locus Lock and General Dynamics enhances the resilience, precision and reliability of Army navigation systems operating in complex and contested environments.
Advanced Navigation, a global leader in assured positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) and autonomous systems, has introduced a line of defense-ready inertial navigation systems (INS) featuring integrated electronic protection (EP) capabilities.
The systems are designed to counter electromagnetic warfare threats and ensure mission continuity amid a global surge in GPS jamming and spoofing attacks.
The electronic protection range includes:
Boreas D Series, including the Boreas D50, D70 and D90 fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG)-based inertial navigation systems. Engineered for high-threat operational theaters, the Boreas D series supports multiple vehicle types and links to battlefield management systems and health and usage monitoring systems.
Certus Evo, an ultra-high accuracy MEMS GPS/inertial navigation system. The compact Certus Evo is designed for applications requiring navigation, stabilization and pointing under high-dynamics conditions.
The rollout builds on Advanced Navigation’s announcement to establish PNT Centers of Excellence (COE) across the United Kingdom, United States and Europe to address the operational needs of NATO forces.
Advanced Navigation’s Boreas D50 is engineered for high-threat scenarios. (Credit: Advanced Navigation)
Maximilian Doemling, chief product officer at Advanced Navigation, said countering signal jamming and spoofing requires solutions that are several steps ahead.
“This means embedding electronic protection into the foundation of every system,” Doemling said. “Our new electronic protection range takes our proven inertial navigation technology and combines it with advanced capabilities to detect and neutralize interference in real time.”
The systems provide real-time detection of GPS interference, cryptographic validation to identify spoofing and adaptive filtering to sustain positioning integrity. A built-in spectrum analyzer provides real-time monitoring of the radio frequency spectrum with configurable notch filters.
The electronic protection range incorporates dual-antenna, multi-band GPS receivers supporting up to three frequency bands for improved satellite visibility in high-interference zones.
The systems are engineered for integration into new and legacy defense platforms including combat vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, artillery, counter-unmanned aircraft systems, radar pointing systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles and autonomous underwater systems.
In September 2024, a coalition of U.S. aviation and maritime stakeholders raised concerns over the surge in GPS jamming and spoofing incidents affecting civilian airspace and international shipping lanes. The Federal Communications Commission announced plans to initiate a formal inquiry into alternative and redundant positioning, navigation and timing systems.
Australia has established the Joint PNT Directorate, now at initial operating capability. In the U.K., the government is working to implement a framework for greater positioning, navigation and timing resilience.
Advanced Navigation backs its solutions with a three-year warranty. All Advanced Navigation solutions are free of International Traffic in Arms Regulations restrictions.
The Boreas D50, Boreas D70, Boreas D90 and Certus Evo are available for shipment.
Safran Electronics & Defense and QinetiQ have entered a strategic partnership to deliver sovereign and resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions for the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence. The collaboration addresses today’s urgent need for trusted PNT capabilities in increasingly challenging and GNSS-denied operational environments.
By integrating QinetiQ’s Q40 GNSS receiver with Safran’s SecureSync time server, the partnership offers advanced protection against jamming, spoofing and other adversarial electronic warfare threats. The joint solution supports multi-signal reception and delivers reliable, coherent synchronization for mission-critical military operations — from strategic headquarters to frontline forces.
The SecureSync time server. (Photo: Safran)
This next-generation, sovereign capability strengthens the UK’s operational advantage, ensuring continuous access to secure timing and navigation, even under electronic attack. The solution is designed to adapt and expand, accommodating future threats and supporting the full spectrum of defence operations.
“The Q40 provides navigational assurance in environments where jamming, spoofing and electronic attacks are ever-present,” said James Willis, chief executive UK Intelligence, QinetiQ. “By pairing it with Safran’s SecureSync, we are giving UK forces a trusted, sovereign solution that ensures precise timing and navigation data remains available when it matters most.”
The Q40 GNSS receiver. (Photo: Qinetiq)
“In the current context of evolving threats and contested environments, guaranteeing sovereignty in navigation and timing is more critical than ever for national defence,” added Maxime Gorlier, director of PNT Business Unit for Safran Electronics & Defense. “This partnership enables UK armed forces to maintain full independence and sovereignty, even when facing sophisticated electronic warfare tactics. Together, we are committed to providing future-proof PNT solutions that strengthen the UK’s resilience and strategic autonomy.”
The partnership leverages both companies’ sustained investment in customer-focused research, development and innovation, and demonstrates their shared commitment to providing robust, secure and resilient PNT solutions.
On June 13, following reports of Israeli airstrikes on Iran, interference rates in the Strait of Hormuz spiked. GPSJam.org, a service that tracks satellite signal interference, now reports medium-level disruption (between 2% and 10%) across the Gulf region. This is no isolated blip, but part of a pattern: electronic warfare is increasing in global hotspots. It’s also a warning.
Modern warfare is no longer about guns and bombs. Jamming, spoofing and using ever-more sophisticated cybertricks to disrupt GNSS are now regular tactics used to sow disorder. They are cheap, deniable, and often highly effective. But they also expose a dangerous weakness in how we navigate, communicate, and coordinate. If GPS is the backbone of global positioning, we are learning just how brittle it can be.
Strait of Hormuz Under Threat
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow channel through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, and here, ships are now at risk not only from pirates and mines, but from corrupted satellite signals. Spoofers can broadcast false GPS positions to nearby vessels. In recent years, we have seen ships appear to sail across runways, airports, and deserts, thanks to malicious signal interference. In aviation, spoofed or jammed GNSS signals have led to aircraft turning around mid-air or being diverted. These are real and growing threats.
As someone who has worked in naval intelligence and the defense industry for decades, I have seen how quickly technology evolves, and how slow we can be to protect our own systems. But there are solutions to the problem I’ve described. One is laser-based optical communications.
The Need for Resilient PNT
Laser communication is very difficult to jam or spoof. Unlike the low-power radio frequencies used by GPS, a laser beam is narrow, focused, and nearly impossible to intercept without being detected. And because lasercom is optical, not radio, it isn’t vulnerable to the same types of interference. That makes laser communication ideal for high-security communications and low latency support in contested environments.
Optical ground station networks, when paired with optical satellite links, also offer vastly higher data transfer capacity than conventional RF systems. Optical links can now carry 1,000 times more data than their RF counterparts. At a time when threats are growing quickly and data needs are exploding, that kind of capacity is essential.
This will make you wonder why lasercom isn’t more widely used. The answer is that only in recent years has it become mature and able to be deployed rapidly. Systems that once seemed exotic or experimental are now proven, reliable, and ready to scale. Many space agencies and defense organizations, including the US Department of Defense and NATO, are investing in them.
To be clear, optical comms will not replace GPS or radio. But they can supplement and support it, especially in high-risk areas where GNSS is under attack. Just as militaries don’t rely on one radar or one radio channel, governments shouldn’t rely on a single source of truth for navigation and timing.
Escalating Threats to Critical Infrastructure
When you depend on precise location data for everything from logistics to drone strikes to the safe passage of oil tankers, the idea that one bad actor with a spoofer can throw you off course is a real concern. When the threat can be made a reality without firing a shot, you can be sure it will be used more and more often.
Just as satellites offer a way to monitor subsea cable sabotage, they also offer a chance to future-proof our navigation and communication networks. The same technology that is being used to track ships and sense underwater disruptions can be adapted to create robust, high-speed, interference-proof backup channels. Governments that invest in this infrastructure now will be in a far stronger position to deter attacks, respond quickly, and maintain operational clarity when others cannot. We wish it were otherwise, but the world is becoming more dangerous, and attacks will accordingly become more common.
If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that infrastructure is no longer neutral. It’s considered a legitimate target, particularly by those whose aim is to create confusion and disorder. GNSS isn’t immune to this trend. In fact, because of it’s importance, it’s a prime target. We have to stop assuming that what worked in peacetime will work at a time of conflict. That, sadly, is the reality of this moment.
“Seen & Heard” is a monthly feature of GPS World magazine, traveling the world to capture interesting and unusual news stories involving the GNSS/PNT industry.
West Point Cadets Map Electronic Warfare West Point cadets conducted a senior thesis project investigating the use of GNSS technology to map and visualize electronic warfare activities in the South Pacific, specifically focusing on GNSS spoofing. Their research, centered on the Huangpu River and Northeastern Shanghai, aimed to identify patterns of malicious GNSS interference and potential perpetrators, highlighting the strategic and economic motivations behind these actions in the region. By developing data visualizations of spoofing incidents, the cadets created a model that could be scaled up to analyze larger areas.
Credit: Eric S. Bartelt / USMA PAO-VI
South Africa Rising Above Water Researchers from the University of Bonn have found that South Africa’s land is rising by up to 2 mm per year, not because of deep mantle activity, but due to water loss from severe droughts. This uplift was detected using the TrigNet network of GNSS stations, which precisely measures changes in land elevation. As groundwater is depleted, the Earth’s crust rebounds upward — a process GNSS stations can monitor in real time.
Credit: THEGIFT777 / E+ / Getty Images
Türkiye to Launch Homegrown Satellite Navigation and Mapping System Türkiye is developing the Regional Positioning and Timing System (BKZS) to launch its own GPS and mapping application, in an effort to reduce dependence on foreign technology and enhance cybersecurity amid growing industrial automation. The system will provide precise location, navigation and timing data via Turkish satellites as an alternative to global systems including GPS, supporting critical sectors such as military operations, civilian communications, smart transportation, and precision agriculture.
Quantum Navigation System Serves as GPS Backup Q-CTRL, a quantum infrastructure software company based in Sydney, Australia, has demonstrated a new quantum navigation system, Ironstone Opal, as a backup to GPS technology. The Ironstone Opal system uses quantum sensors to detect variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, determining precise geographic coordinates with the help of artificial intelligence-based software. Ironstone Opal is passive and does not emit signals, making it resistant to detection and jamming. Field trials showed the system outperformed a high-end inertial navigation system and served as a reliable GPS backup by up to 50 times in ground vehicles and 11 times in aircraft.
Ukraine has received its first Shark ultralight aircraft with electronic warfare (EW) capabilities from the Czech-Slovak company Shark.Aero, reports European Security and Technology (ES&T), a German publication. The Shark can detect and jam enemy drones and will strengthen the defense of Ukraine against Russian attacks.
The Shark’s two-seat tandem configuration was originally designed as a high-performance ultralight aircraft for civilian use. Its main features are its high speed of nearly 300 km/h and its maneuverability.
The military version of the ultralight is designed to detect and jam enemy drones. It offers the Ukrainian army a mobile, airborne defense option against loitering UAVs and reconnaissance drones.
Electronic warfare system
The first EW component suppresses GNSS navigation signals; the second suppresses video and remote control channels of enemy drones. The system is installed in a suspended container under the center of the fuselage so as not to affect the aerodynamics of the craft. From an altitude of 1800 m, the system can interfere with the operation of drones within a radius of up to 4.5 km.
A Shark representative discusses the ultralight with EW capabilities below.
The ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, along with the unrest in various universities across the United States in support of Gaza Palestinians, and the continued aggression by the Houthi rebels in Yemen against shipping, are impacting several aspects of our lives, including the rising cost of gasoline.
Since the United States began seeking out Houthi strongholds, it is now being reported that another MQ-9 Reaper drone has been shot down – making an apparent total of five such expensive U.S. UAVs lost over and around Yemen, according to US military reports.
Screenshot of a Houthi-released video of the downing of the MQ-9 Reaper drone (Photo: UAS Vision)
At $30 million each, compared to about $2 million for a surface-to-air missile, the Houthis are apparently ahead on cost. With a 50,000 ft ceiling, the Reaper is capable of avoiding short-range surface-to-air missiles. However, more visual or infra-red (IR) low-level detail may have been sought on this mission. In response, the U.S. military reported the downing of five Houthi UAVs over the Red Sea.
According to a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, Iran is supplying the Houthis with attack UAVs and longer-range missiles, which are often, if not always, re-assembled, repainted and re-named locally. The DIA said that one of the favorite Kamikaze UAVs used is the Iranian Shahed-136/Houthi Waid-2, which is reported to have a range of almost 1,600 miles. Neither side has yet acknowledged which drones were brought down by the United States.
However, around the same time, it was reported that perhaps two Houthi missiles hit the MV Andromeda Star oil tanker with reportedly little damage — no casualties were reported on the ship as it continued towards its destination Vadinar, India. Another ship, the MV Maisha, avoided a third missile. The missile landed nearby in the water, but the vessel put some distance between itself and the MV Andromeda, continuing safely.
The US/UK forces operating in the Red Sea have countered the more than 100 Houthi attacks on shipping with several airborne strikes on Houthi facilities. This renewed Houthi action over the weekend is thought to have been possible because they were restocked with weapons following the US/UK airstrikes, which slowed their attacks on shipping.
Hence the renewed threat to oil tanker traffic in the Red Sea has raised the already high threat level, and increased oil and gas prices at the pump are one of the consequences.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has bought 10 additional Chinese Caihong-4, which reportedly look and perform very similarly to the MQ-9 Reaper.
Caihong-4 looks very similar to the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (Photo: OE Data Integration Network (ODIN))
The CH-4 can be used for both attack and reconnaissance. It features a flight endurance of 30 to 40 hours, a range of 2,200 to 3,100 miles and can carry up to six weapons.
This brings Pakistan’s complement to 20 CH-4 UAVs. The new purchase may be to offset India’s purchase of 31 General Atomics MQ-9s, which is included in a huge, recently approved $3.99 billion weapons purchase from the United States. The two countries continue to feud over the contested Kashmir region.
AeroVironment (AV) has developed an add-on for fielded Puma class hand-launched reconnaissance UAVs, which brings autonomy and machine-learning to a worldwide, mostly military fleet of thousands of air vehicles. Referred to as the Autonomy Retrofit Kit (ARK), with AVACORE software, the new update allows operators to command and control one or more vehicles autonomously. This provides computer vision capabilities and enables connection to a distributed, mobile comms network to access data for several separated operating groups.
ARK retrofit kit for Puma 3AE and LE UAVs (Photo: AV)
According to AV, autonomous operating tasking is possible when communications are jammed and the UAV is then still able to execute its mission without manual input. Updated computer vision allows finding, classifying, positioning and daylight or nighttime tracking of objects such as people, vehicles, aircraft and ships. AVACORE includes several software interfaces for different autopilots, sensors and radios to provide integration flexibility.
A neat way to provide significantly enhanced capability for already fielded airborne vehicles when they have some downtime.
Finally, we have a short introduction to a new transport UAV being put together by a California company called MightyFly. The company is led by a woman who was highly instrumental in the success of the flight controls for the Zipline UAV, which is still blazing drone delivery trails overseas and now in North America — with more than one million deliveries. With advisory input from a retired FedEx exec, the team at MightyFly seems well on their way with both a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved Part 135 application and a 20 mile ‘point-to-point’ flight corridor approval for test flights.
Cento gen 3 cargo drone (Photo: MightyFly)
The MF-100 prototype made its first flight and demonstration delivery in April 2021, while the third-generation Cento flew for the first time in December 2022. Cento has a 6’ x 1’ x 1’ cargo hold that can accommodate 96 small USPS packages, weighing up to 100lb and Cento and later models are expected to have a range of 600 miles at up to 150 mph. While their UAVs are currently all-electric, the plan is to add a gas/rotary engine to charge batteries to achieve this forecast range for the drone.
MightyFly has significant support from the U.S. Air Force Agility Prime program and the Air Mobility Command, who continue to invest in autonomous cargo developments as an alternative to leasing helicopters to transport parts, medical supplies and more. MightyFly came up with an auto-loading capability, which resolves the issue of a potentially changing weight and balance of a last-mile cargo drone.
