FPV drones in Ukraine: dual radio and fibre-optic control to raise hit rates

Ukraine's way of war is being shaped by new developments in FPV drones: supply has improved, hybrid control links are being added, and AI-assisted targeting is noticeably raising efficiency. How this change is unfolding can be traced through the career of Tetyana Chornovol, who started out as a politician, now flies as a drone pilot and has successfully adapted to the new technological demands.

That First Lieutenant Tetyana Chornovol would one day fly drones with a first-person view (FPV) was not preordained. She began as a journalist; in the 2000s she turned increasingly to activism – above all during the Euromaidan. She later became a politician and the government's commissioner for anti-corruption policy. She has served as a soldier in the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022. Outside Kyiv, as deputy company commander, she destroyed Russian tanks with the Ukrainian Skif/Stugna-P anti-tank guided missile.

When guided missiles stopped arriving, she taught herself FPV flying – in 300 hours on the simulator. In 2024, as a beginner, she was allocated one drone a day, which she had to use both for practice and for combat missions. Experienced combat crews were receiving ten drones a day at the time.

This has also changed because of the stance of Robert Brovdi, commander of the "Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine". His principle: pilots should not wait for drones; drones should wait for pilots.

FPV drones are now delivered by the million. For their 16 planned teams of three, the FPV drone companies receive around 7,200 units a month – shortages are a thing of the past.

One successful flight in three is not enough

With supply solved, the efficiency of the FPV drone as a weapon system moves to the fore. At best, only about a third of flights currently produce a result. With radio-controlled drones the link was often unstable, frequently because of jamming. If the mostly analogue video signal drops out, pilots lose their picture; if the digital control signal is lost, the drone can no longer be steered.

The answer was FPV drones whose video and control signals run through a fibre-optic cable. So far this has proved impossible to jam. It also lets many FPV drones fly at the same time without blocking each other's channels. The weak point of the cable drone, however, is cable breakage – and the longer the cable, the more likely it becomes.

How FPV drones got both radio and cable

Tetyana Chornovol's drone platoon currently shows how fast Ukraine's drone ecosystem brings improvements to the front. Its drone engineer Victor Trach designed a dual control system that now links the FPV drone by both radio and cable. This significantly increases the chance that at least one of the two signals holds while the other recovers and becomes usable again.

Chornovol held talks with many drone manufacturers. Eventually General Chereshnya recognised the potential of the technology and built the platoon's first dual-control drones in 10-inch and 13-inch sizes. Each drone costs 50 euros more, raising the total cost by around five per cent.

Anyone wanting to achieve an effect despite losing control, above all in the terminal phase of the attack run, can also turn to AI modules. The cheapest cost from around 125 to roughly 260 euros.

These AI guidance systems take the place of the conventional drone camera. Once locked on, they follow vehicles and people autonomously and supply the control signals needed to keep the drone on course until impact.

That brings radio control back into focus: until lock-on, the drone can fly high enough and well outside the range in which a target vehicle jams radio signals. Steering all the way to the hit remains the ideal. But even if the radio link breaks, the chance of still hitting the target increases.