Drone warfare fuels arms race amidst Ukraine war

The proliferation of drones in the Ukraine war is fuelling a fresh arms race between manufacturers of unmanned aerial systems and communications engineers developing radio wave scramblers and GPS jammers.

Exhibitors at the Paris Eurosatory military expo told the Associated Press on Tuesday that pilots and their units on the battlefield were still largely experimenting with the technology.

The increasing use of scramblers has come to cause communication breakdowns affecting both sides for instance.

"We've seen in Ukraine that the challenge is that if you turn jammers at the maximum level, obviously you don't have communications either for other things so you need to be able to find a balance," Traak CEO Thomas Duroyon told the AP.

Based in France, his company develops location trackers and sensors that equip combat drones.

But these drone-killing scramblers that can fit in a hand-held gun-shaped device are key in the fight against the hundreds of small readily available civilian drones that are deployed and sometimes used for precision artillery.

"These drones can fly out, work out where their target is, and then report back to the people actually controlling the artillery in real time where their target is," detailed Droneshield director Red McClintock.

"The artillery can see what the effect is and do their battle damage assessments and then they can choose to re-fire immediately. It takes that decision cycle and really shrinks it down to almost nothing. That's why these drones are so disruptive on the battlefield."