Ukrainian drone operators have so far succeeded in destroying a large number of armored vehicles and even Russian helicopters using cheap "Shrike" drones that cost only $400. Now, thousands of these drones are being equipped with a new artificial intelligence system capable of automatically identifying and tracking moving targets.
Since mid-July, the Ukrainian army has begun taking delivery of drones from the SkyFall company, which are equipped with autonomous hardware and software from the American company Auterion. These companies plan to send 50,000 drones equipped with Skynode S assault kits to the front lines in the coming months to bolster Ukraine's military capability.
This new technology allows human operators to first manually pilot the FPV drones to the battle zone, designate a target at a distance of up to half a mile, and then, by activating a switch, place the drone in autonomous guidance mode. In this mode, called "fire-and-forget", the AI takes over the task of tracking and precisely guiding the drone toward the target until the moment of impact, without the need for human intervention.