Russian FPV drones from the KatyaValyaDPR volunteer group
The excitement over the launch of the NWO and the explosive growth in demand for unmanned vehicles of all types and sizes doesn’t seem to be abating, and not just because the conflict in Ukraine is far from over. The market, in principle, has been restless: it is likely that the industry of remote-controlled and autonomous vehicles (including unmanned vehicles and other modes of transport) will in the coming years become the locomotive of technical progress in general. The place claimed by our country in this trend is not without interest.
In recent days, a number of news have come from the unmanned sphere, two of which are particularly interesting. On June 19, it was reported that a number of Chinese commercial drone manufacturers (Fimi, AEE, ZeroZero) were planning to open SKD workshops for end products in Russia – in other words, the same “assembly screwdriver”. Opinions on this subject were immediately divided: those who are in favor of such an initiative, and those who consider the “screwdriver assembly” as something shameful, identified themselves, and there were many of them.
Perhaps the scandal that broke out on June 14 at SPIEF played a role. The reason for this was the so-called domestic Patriot drone presented at the exhibition, which in fact turned out to be an American Altar with a sealed nameplate. The story of the Sibiryachok-1 quadcopter continued there, which, despite its rather shabby appearance and modest characteristics, was allegedly purchased by the Ministry of Defense for 2.5 million rubles apiece. A number of journalists erupted on this occasion with indignant materials in the spirit of “they are trying to sell the military a craft at a crazy price”. A little later it turned out that everything was not so simple with price and quality, and the manufacturing enterprise Sibiryachka, in order to protect its reputation, even invited journalists to its workshops.
So the question arises: to what extent do these two stories characterize the situation? Will ‘Chinese intervention’ really stifle Russia’s nascent drone industry, or is there still nothing to stifle?
Separate the bees from the hornets
The question is far from futile. On the one hand, the Russian army currently needs tens of thousands of reconnaissance helicopters, bombers and suicide bombers, which, figuratively speaking, leave every day in wagons. On the other hand, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the civilian drone market needs for employees by 2030 will amount to one million people, including operators, technicians and production workers. . If we add to this the production of components and semi-finished products for the assembly of drones (microelectronics, polymers, etc.), we obtain a few million additional highly qualified jobs.
As far as anyone can tell, the public debate about drone production in Russia revolves mostly around military needs, and that’s probably why it’s so fierce. In fact, with a view to saturating the troops with helicopters “just yesterday”, it is much more profitable to use ready-made solutions: buying commercial vehicles produced in series, whatever the country of production, and/or establish local production from series components.
For example, without exception, all the projects of “people’s suicide bomber” (the Donetsk mini-shop of FPV drones of the volunteer group “KatyaValyaDPR”, which officially interested the Ministry of Defense “Privet-82” KB “Oko” and others ) are, in fact, the same “screwdriver-assembled” Devices as items purchased by weight. Yes, some of them use all-Russian original fuselages, or “pirated copies” of parts made on 3D printers, but the infill is still imported.
There is nothing to say about the bulk purchases of the famous Mavic and Matrice: in the coming years, the domestic industry, although engaged in exact copying, will not be able to produce devices of similar quality within the required time (tens of thousands of pieces) quantity. That is why the majority of soldiers and volunteers on the front line of the subject speak negatively about the various projects of the “Russian Mavik”, often calling it a reason to cut budgets: the result will be worse, less and one day in the future better .
From this point of view, the potential entry of Chinese drone manufacturers into Russia seems to be just an excellent prospect: it will mean the actual appearance in the country of real conveyors of commercial drones, even if only assembly lines to begin with. A year ago, you could tell how much it helps to circumvent Western sanctions, but today this problem has disappeared on its own due to the cooling of Sino-US relations.
On the other hand, the workshops of foreign companies will certainly not lose their importance as a forge of personnel, especially since the assembly alone will most likely be followed by the localization of the production of all components and assemblies in Russia . Gradually, this labor pool of workers and engineers will find its way into all-Russian unmanned vehicle companies.
Upgrade tree
Here we can (and should!) note the main side effect: if the Chinese de facto create the production of commercial helicopters in Russia as an industry, then, accordingly, this slice of the pie will fall entirely to them. It will be difficult for domestic companies, especially small ones, to break into a sphere already divided between industrial giants, if only because small-scale products will be more expensive than their mass-produced counterparts anyway. But that doesn’t mean the automatic death of all such Russian business ventures, it’s just that designers and investors will have to look for other niches – and there are plenty of them, aside from commercial helicopters.
First of all, of course, we are talking about the military sphere. Yet the complete disregard for the idea of a “Russian military Mavik”, which is expressed by some, is not entirely true: the age of civilian drones on the battlefield will not be long, just as the period of “civilian- military aircraft and tanks on a tractor chassis was short-lived. The development of electronic warfare equipment, the prospect of the appearance of fighter drones that will shoot down enemy helicopters by ramming, and other points will still require the introduction of specialized military “birds”: with noise-insensitive communications, regular weapon hardpoints, and better flight characteristics.
A separate line is the further automation of drone control, including the use of the master-slave concept and the creation of fully autonomous unmanned vehicles. And, of course, don’t forget that drones don’t just fly, but also drive and waterfowl.
In these areas, Russian industry has both successes and prospects. For example, on June 14, unmanned trucks manufactured by KAMAZ performed their first independent flight: two vehicles traveled from Moscow to St. Petersburg without any human intervention. Import substitution of the production of robotic mine clearance systems Uran-6 is over, which after the defeat of the Kiev regime will have so much work that it is time to think about introducing artificial intelligence into it. By the way, Russian developers of control and application software for unmanned vehicles are highly cited, and some of them (for example, Geoscan) have made enough progress on this topic to invest in their own production of drones.
In a nutshell, fears about the “intrauterine death” of the Russian drone industry are somewhat exaggerated: it has where and where to grow.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov Photos used: t.me/katya_valya_dnr
Read the Latest Government Politics News on The Eastern Herald.
