Beyond the Build - Skydio X10D: Contested Environments
To meet the challenges of electronic warfare (EW) the X10D has a robust communications system with a multi-band frequency range and dynamic channel switching that can mitigate the effects of RF jamming.
Learn more about Skydio X10D.
- Drones are being used to inform where things happen on the battle space,
- but I cannot do that if I'm not allowed to fly
- because the EM spectrum is being contested in a way that is
- inhibiting me from flying.
- The battlefield is constantly changing as far as the, the electronic
- warfare side of the house. We can no longer operate, um, on a
- single frequency or even a single band.
- What we're seeing right now in the contested environments all over the world
- is
- that you really need to have an agile platform,
- a platform that's able to adapt to
- the current threats that we're seeing and build on its capability over time,
- and that's really what we've built into Xtend-D.
- [instrumental music]
- The EM spectrum, where all the frequencies live,
- is super congested, and there's
- frequency managers that
- basically say, "You can operate in these spaces."
- And that's different from country
- to country or environment to environment.
- And so we have a robust communication system on the aircraft in our
- multi-band frequency range, which not only enables us to operate in
- the States,
- but enables us to operate in environments that are seeing, experiencing conflicts
- now.
- The Skydio Connect MH radio is, uh, a multi-band
- radio that can operate on, on six different, uh, frequencies between
- 1.6 gigahertz and 2.4 gigahertz. It
- allows for a tremendous amount of flexibility depending on the sort of
- operating environment and the, the terrain that a, a user
- is operating in to
- find a, a spectrum that is available and provide a significant
- amount of deconfliction with, with other assets
- that may be operating in the area.
- Dynamic channel switching is an RF denial feature
- set that we've built out to help mitigate some of the
- effects of the contested RF environment that we're seeing in near peer
- environments
- currently. Once jamming is encountered by the drone, it's able
- to autonomously, with no user action, switch to the next preset and
- potentially mitigate that RF jamming environment.
- Now, if I'm able to stay in the air longer as a
- drone and
- identify what the enemy's doing or an opportunity to exploit,
- then I'm going to win the fight.
- In addition to just really working with the radio inside of the drone, we've
- had lots of requests for an external radio kit.
- So if you're operating inside of a compound, you have compound
- walls that are affecting the signal, now you can put the external radio kit
- on top of the roof or on a mast and extend the range of your system.
- We're operating this off of ethernet.
- Where your signal emits from is actually pretty dangerous because
- there's tools to find where that signal emits from.
- But with the external radio kit, now we're able to extend through
- this ethernet cable, and that's offsetting where our signal's
- emanating
- from, preserving the lives of our soldiers, um,
- so that they can
- operate, uh, a little bit more safely.
- In Ukraine and other near peer environments,
- they're seeing thousands of aircraft
- being lost a month, so this is one of the mitigating factors
- that we're using to
- make sure that Skydio drones can always reach their target.
- [instrumental music]
Watch Time
3 Mins 1 Secs