The Drone to Beat All Drones

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Russia’s Mikran has recently announced its production of a new counter-drone drone robot. The device is built to hunt small immediate airborne pray. The Russian firm has stated that its mission, among others, is to devour the competition.

“This drone has a very colorful name: ‘Carnivora.’ It was obviously selected due to its mission — attack and incapacitate other drones and UAVs, to ‘cannibalize’ them,” Samuel Bendett, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, told c4isrnet.com. “According to the developers, the drone can use nets to intercept targets; can carry several types of high-explosive ammunition, as well as reconnaissance equipment. Currently, according to Mikran, the prototype is undergoing factory flight tests.”

To carry those payloads, Carnivora has a rather large body in comparison to other medium drones. It weighs in at a maximum weight of around 40 kilos, with 35 liters of space for payload inside. The fixed-wing drone has an almost 5 meter wingspan, and a top speed of 150 kmh and is designed to stay airborne for between 10-15 hours. The Carnivora is billed as made for the future threat environment, where electronic warfare renders remote control difficult. However, Carnivora is hardly the only drone designed for combat in denied environments. Kalashnikov also recently announced an Arctic drone designed to operate without satellite navigation.

“More importantly, the UAV is able to work “in the conditions of radio-electronic suppression with the complete loss of satellite navigation signals.” This is key — Russians are actively training their forces and designing military tech to operate in an environment where the loss of GPS and other traditional navigation systems would be imminent,” says Bendett. “This is one of the ways Russian forces are preparing to counter what they perceive is a technologically superior adversary that will take aim at the Russian navigation, satellite and other technology.”

The electromagnetically denied environment is the future threat guiding the mission of the Carnivora. But its design is likely also shaped by the experience of Russian forces in Syria, where they encountered small commercial off-the-shelf drones used in simple and sophisticated attacks on Russian military bases and installations.

“C-UAV efforts are receiving lots of attention across the Russian armed forces — taking down small adversary drones is now getting built into the Russian military’s most important targets,” says Bendett. “This drone that can hunt and destroy other small drones fits into that.”