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Comment by WJW | Hacker News Reader

You don't have to guess about the military applications, it's all over the news. Even bog standard FPV drones that Ukraine is churning out at a rate of >100k/month have image recognition these days, so that if the video stream gets jammed they can finish off the mission autonomously.

Even on a hobby level, ardupilot+openCV+cheap drone kit from amazon is a DIY project within the skill set of a significant part of the visitors of this very site.

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I find it both surprising and, fortunately, reassuring that despite how easy it is to buy inexpensive components on platforms like Amazon, Temu, or AliExpress, we have yet to see a wave of terrorist attacks in the busiest public spaces.

the average american cannot afford a surprise $500 expense. you think they can afford a drone swarm?

If the average American becomes desperate enough to rig up a drone for a terror attack, I don't think they particularly care about the effect of that $500 on their credit report afterwards.

> so that if the video stream gets jammed they can finish off the mission autonomously.

The streams mostly don't get jammed anymore, because the low-cost FPV drones are physically connected to the ground by a long optical cable. The extent of their autonomous dangers are limited by the amount of fibre-optic cable left in the spool when they take off.

Optical fiber drones is still the minority of drones (both because more expensive and because it has other downsides than radio)

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