By Kris Osborn, Warrior

(Washington DC)   The famous Switchblade drone has been destroying tanks in Ukraine for several years as a guided sensor-munition capable of identifying enemy tanks and armored vehicles ... then destroying them when directed by a human.  The drone has become famous for both ISR and functioning itself as an explosive able to descend upon and obliterate enemy targets. 

A significant Army Intelligence Report called the “The Operational Environment 2024-2034 Large-Scale Combat Operations.” (US Army Training and Doctrine Command, G2) says that Russia’s entire active duty tank force has been destroyed in its war with Ukraine. 

“Ukrainian Armed Forces have used vast quantities of man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), antitank guided missiles, and FPV UAS—combined with fires—to great effect. As of July 2024, Russia has lost 3,197 main battle tanks—more than its entire active-duty inventory at the outset of conflict—and 6,160 armored fighting vehicles, forcing them to pull increasingly obsolescent systems from storage,” the text of the report from 2024 states.

The Switchblade has been a large part of this effort, and now its maker AV is upgrading the weapon to expand its lethality, survivability and concepts of operation.  AV engineers have upgraded the warhead, range and method of attack and adding maritime applications for the weapon. 

"About 10 years ago, we took the idea of loitering munitions and grew that into a larger capability that included the Javelin multipurpose warhead. and started developing that into what you would describe as a tank killer," Brian Young, Vice President, Loitering Munitions, AV, told Warrior in an interview for the C-UAS Series. 

Young says several Switchblade innovations are now underway, to include the addition of EW applications, signal hardening and datalink modifications to adjust to the war environment in Ukraine. 

"Switchblade has both the GPS data link and a video data link, or a GPS link. And obviously, the situation in Ukraine is heavily EW focused. So operating without GPS is an absolute must. And ever since switchblade was originally developed, it technically has the ability to operate without GPS. So if you have a data link, a video data link, and the operator knows the terrain well, you really don't need GPS. And so it's that video link that's critical for giving the operator a real-time view of the battlefield and then also for targeting," Young said.  "The way Switchblade targets is..... it uses the video, the operator identifies the target, and then Switchblade uses the pixels on that target to glide or drive the munition into the target. And so once that video feed is locked on, it doesn't need GPS or anything to prosecute a target, and that's just naturally how Switchblade operates.  It does need a radio link. .... So one of the things we've done to address what's going on in Ukraine is we've been updating our data links quickly based on feedback from the field. And so that will be critical moving forward to have that modular data link, that data link where the software and the hardware can be updated. And that's something we've really been focused on."

There are a variety of methods through which datalinks can be hardened, to include frequency hopping .. .meaning a transmission signal can quickly switch from one frequency another to avoid being "jammed" and continue its targeting mission. This is a way RF can be hardened. Also, as Young described, Switchblades are now being engineered with a modular, adjustable datalink to ensure the RF signal can adapt and receive software upgrades as new threats emerge. 

" If you look at our SwitchBlade 600 Block 2 variant, That's one of the things that we're going to for all of the new Switchblades is a much more modular radio that can be changed out at production time and then, you know, maybe long term in the field, but right now at production time so we can make quick changes to those radios," Young said.  " We released Switchblade 400 at the AUSA show last week. And that certainly has a modular front end that can swap out payloads and use various military standards for physical space and also electronic and software connection. to adapt quickly to the battlefield."

Surging into the future, Switchblade drones will also be enabled with automatic target recognition, a computer processing technology connecting EO/IR sensor data to an elaborate analytical system able to bounce incoming data off of a database and verify targets. 

 "Switchblade operates by having the human identify the target and then essentially select that target and the optics and the control system do the rest. What we're also working on, and as you see some of the advanced processing we're putting into our Switchblade 600 and our Switchblade 400, are processors that can do things like automatic target recognition.  Once you get into an area where you know you should be seeing targets, the system can automatically identify those targets and do the endgame targeting for you" Young explained. 

Maritime Switchblade 

AV is also working on integrating this automated Switchblade drone into surface Unmanned Surface Vehicles to verify enemy targets at sea such as enemy small boat swarms, surface ships or even drones and helicopters.