The Drone Guy
We'd all love to know the secrets of army R&D... Unfortunately, nobody's going to tell me, and if they did I wouldn't publish it. But here's a glimpse that help us laypeople understand the basics.
This is Igor. Igor is a tech nerd, a species which has evolved to use caffeine to replace sleep. Six months ago he joined the army, and if approached with care, gentleness and energy drinks on one of his rare days off, he can be induced to talk about his work in general terms.
Thanks to Jude Ellison for proofreading this post. Faces are shown by agreement.
You seem to be completely exhausted.
Igor: Absolutely!
So… you’re in the army now, but you started out doing R&D with the 3Druk guys. What projects did you work on?
Electronics and 3D modelling for the military. We were working on a drone detector for Mavics and certain FPV types… A drone detector called Tsukorok, which means sugar cube. It’s commercially licensed, so you talk to the developer, they give you documents and firmware and you just start implementing the thing. I did PCBs [Printed Circuit Boards] for electronic components and modelled enclosures.
What’s your technical background?
It’s a funny story, because I tell everyone that in the military I’m returning to my profession from university, because I studied electronics engineering. Then I worked at a factory for several months and it was a nice experience, but the guys told me, man, you are too clever for that. Go for IT. And I was coding for about eight years.
But when the war started, I was just casually volunteering, like, raising funds for cars. We were going to the front line to give soldiers new cars and so on. But at some point I think I just figured out that it’s time to use my head and somehow I found Georgii and Illia and started working on more technical stuff. Now that’s what I do in the military.
Georgii: Hello, everyone. We want to thank the guys and girls from FreeFilmers who sent us a whopping 40 kilograms of plastic. It took both of us to carry it! As ever, we thank everyone who donates to us regularly. You are the best! Bye!
How do you like being in the army?
I feel pretty good! It’s hard work, exhausting, but because most of the time I’m an engineer and not on actual military operations, I sleep at home. I have some kind of schedule. Sometimes I have days off.
If someone is a good engineer there really are some places in the army where they can find themselves and help our country – and still live a little bit. Otherwise we won’t live, because we are 20 kilometres from the front line right now, you know.
Your focus is on electronics?
Well, in the army I do everything that is required to research and develop. I’m the guy you can come to and say, we need that, what do you think about it. Unfortunately right now there’s not so many people in our regiment who can solve such problems, but the guys are learning and growing.
That’s why you’re exhausted.
[Emphatically] Yep.
So, the main thing is communications for drones. FPV drones is a hobby thing and the market offers some solutions, but it turns out that those absolutely don’t work in the military. So, we have to develop something new, or adapt market solutions to our needs.
I guess you can’t tell me much about Ukrainian drone tech and manufacturing. But readers of this blog will know about the ever-increasing drone threat to Ukrainian cities. Are we doing the same for the Russians?
[Huge grin] Yeah, personally I can say, we are doing the same.
You can’t tell me any details about it.
It wasn’t us, it’s just some feral drones from Ukrainian territory.
Feral drones that wandered across the border huh…
Yeah, GPS jamming, that’s why it happens.
Is it true that Russian drone technology is in advance of ours at the moment?
It really depends on the part of the front we are talking about. In our part, I think we are almost matched. Because they have much more manufacturing and engineering power, engineering. And it’s not a secret that many of our aviation and electronics engineers were working for Russia before the physical invasion.
[The Russians] are teaching children in schools to make drones. And, in our case, we have, I think, lots of great solutions, but it’s not centralised. There are no school programmes that are sponsored by government. It mostly comes out of business. And from initiatives in military regiments where they have good engineers. Third Assault Brigade’s engineers are really good.
We and the Russian military are both advancing every day, but in a different way. In their case, the government really helps them to do that. And, in our case, sometimes there’s bureacraucy and misalignment. So, it’s more, like, internal initiative, maybe some DIY solutions when we could really use factories. That’s the problem, I guess.
The government actually blocks you? It’s not just that they don’t help?
Not only government, but bureaucracy. We are still kind of a post-Soviet army, and they just shoot you in the knee. There are cases when we have some great ideas, which require lots of development time, lots of research and may help us in future. But they just throw it away because right now we have to solve something else.
As for the place where I’m serving, I think we are really getting better on that. Like, right now we are forming a research and development department, which I’m in. They are trying to keep me away from manufacturing processes and just let me concentrate on the new things that we really need. But that will take some time.
Do you think we’re going to see Russian FPV drones chasing people in the streets of Kharkiv like they do in Kherson?
Technically it’s possible, of course. But they’re just, you know, wild dogs and we can’t figure out what they will do next. It just depends on which particular method of terror they choose tomorrow. Does it make any sense? Not at all. Does it solve some military problem? Not at all. They just keep doing some crazy shit.
Igor: Hello, friends. Today we are testing a pyrotechnic electric match. We’ll need it for training mines during the KMB [Ukrainian basic military training course], and possibly for other uses – like triggering a pyrotechnic charge, for example. Now we’re going to show you some tricks. It’s pretty simple, really. A battery, a button, and the fuse itself. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Let’s check it out… There you go.
Do Russian military drone operators come quite far forward?
No, no. In these terms the world is really changing. If a couple of years ago the pilots were positioned maybe several kilometres from the zero line… Well, now we have a 20-kilometre kill zone without any strict borders and the pilots are even further away.
Technically I think both our pilots and their pilots right now can fly drones from the closest city straight to the front line. We can do this from Kharkiv and they can do this from Belgorod.
Could the Russians easily attack cities in Poland?
If they can attack cities in the west of our country, they can do the same for Poland. Technically there is no problem in that.
They are just rage-baiting Europe right now. And maybe someday it will turn into a casus belli for the invasion of some European country.
I’m not a tactician or a strategist, but they are stuck and to change the situation they have to do something. And attacking some of the smaller European countries could absolutely be some kind of action to try to change the situation overall.
Igor is in the army but 3Druk are still printing thousands of plastic parts for drones and other army equipment a month. Their PayPal is at donate@3dryk.pro. Please select Friends and Family, and add a note: ‘3D printing supplies’.
Great piece, very informative. Take heed where he says the Ruskys are more centralized in their drone program. Also, it should be added that that many of the components floating around are Chinese manufacture. A real nugget to read.
The DIY! The teamwork! The enthusiasm! Wonderful people. I cheer for them.