A drone has two weak spots: the radio link with its pilot and its satellite navigation. Break one or both, and the drone loses its way or its control.
In practiceInfantry use "drone guns": rifle-shaped jammers that disrupt the control link at 2.4/5.8 GHz and GPS. Many commercial drones then land or fly back home. A fibre-optic drone has no radio link and is immune to this (Lessons from Ukraine (open source)).
Most drones are vulnerable through two radio links. Understand those, and you understand drone EW:
- The C2 link (command & control): the uplink for control and the downlink for (video) imagery, often in the 2.4 / 5.8 GHz ISM bands. RF jamming of this link breaks control: the drone loses its pilot.
- GNSS navigation: many drones rely on GPS/GLONASS (GNSS and navigation warfare). GNSS jamming blinds the navigation; GNSS spoofing feeds in a false position signal, so that the drone can be “moved” or thinks it is somewhere else.
When the links are lost, many drones fall back on return-to-home or hover in place — behaviour the defender can exploit (a drone flying home gives away its operator). Drone EW is thus in effect EW (What is Electronic Warfare?) applied to the smallest, cheapest platform — with the same principles as jamming and spoofing elsewhere in this course.