German company HIGHCAT is demonstrating its HMX fiber-optic drone in Ukraine this month. Now combat footage has emerged of what appears to be the first strikes by this type of weapon ... The controller can use an AI system heavier and more powerful than a drone could carry, taking advantage of high-resolution imagery to track and identify objects in real time. The cheap drone is expended but the expensive controller is reused for multiple strikes. Six months ago this technology was not even a rumor. Now it is on the open market and destroying targets.
I would say not really. This pretty much only fits the exact use case for its specific niche need. E.g. operating in RF adverse/non-recoverable environments. Otherwise it's a waste. So technically it's still not "popular" in the sense of general popularity. You're not going to see your general drone pilot rushing to put fiber optic on thier drone. This also isn't a new concept. Its the same thing as wire-guided missiles that have been around since WWII.
A lot of top comments from HN age badly or are just blatantly incorrect/false. People are captured in their own ideology which gets reinforced by the eco chamber effect here, and so refuse to acknowledge the possibility they might be wrong or that the real world is vastly different than the one in their eco chamber (like the fact that most of the world uses Windows).
Especially true for SW engineers and other privileged people (politicians are an even better example) who due to their high status and wealth assume that if they got a well paid job, then they must be super smart and right at any other topics or areas, and then end up shocked that their viewpoint gets demolished by the masses or by the end results down the line.
In a way it's like how democracy works: it doesn't matter what is right and what is wrong, the opinion that ends up denominating is what the the masses perceive as being right.
The weird part is that they are also advertised on Instagram. More than once I have gotten an ad from an account showcasing these fiber optic drones and their R&D operation. And you can openly contact them for inquries.
I won't link them, but they are quite easy to find... Most of the accounts offering them are custom DIY drones. The fiber optic attachment spools seem to be mass produced though.
I wonder if you could have a mothership drone situation, where one drone sits high and out of range, and others fly out to their targets. Would prevent the cable getting caught on stuff and stop the cable leading back to the operator.
Tethered but .. not constrained by that tether. Like annoying dogs in the dog-park whose owners feel free to real out the fishing line and never reel it in.
I am reminded of a poetic moment from a former US army person who told me of sunlight glinting off the trail of wires left behind after practice launches of wire guided MANPAD type systems. He said they were like spider silk in the dawn.
Those were probably anti-tank missiles such as the BGM-71 TOW. I don't think there are any MANPADS that use wire guidance: all of the modern ones are IR.
Readit News
August 2024, commercial availability, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/08/20/russia...
Especially true for SW engineers and other privileged people (politicians are an even better example) who due to their high status and wealth assume that if they got a well paid job, then they must be super smart and right at any other topics or areas, and then end up shocked that their viewpoint gets demolished by the masses or by the end results down the line.
In a way it's like how democracy works: it doesn't matter what is right and what is wrong, the opinion that ends up denominating is what the the masses perceive as being right.
* https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/03/27/please-don-t-use-my-... - less focused on the subject.
* https://meduza.io/feature/2025/03/25/terminator-veschiy-film - more focus on the subject (no English version yet, use Google Translate or something).
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZdHK_Ryyp/
Right now, my money’s on scissors.
I think this is fibres littering trees in Kursk.
Russian FPV operators have already lost their life due to this precise effect and the fact they operated from the same building multiple times.