Ukraine has developed a cheap cruise missile guided by an open-source autopilot system typically found in consumer drones. The use of hobby components highlights the shrinking gap between military and consumer electronics, which may make it easier for small countries and non-state actors to develop powerful high-tech weapons.
With foreign long-range weapons hard to come by, Ukraine has had to develop its own. Fire Point, a Ukrainian company, showed off its FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile at the Eurosatory defence expo in Paris last month. The 6-tonne missile can carry a warhead twice as heavy as a Tomahawk cruise missile for twice the distance, but costs a fraction as much.
One secret of Flamingo’s low cost is its Ardupilot flight controller, which uses sensor data to keep the missile flying stably along its assigned path.
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Ardupilot is an open-source software suite that has been around since 2009, and can run on hardware costing less than $100. Drone hobbyists use Ardupilot on everything from multicopters and model aircraft to boats and ground vehicles.
In a post on X, Fire Point’s Chief Technology Officer Iryna Terekh said open-source software offers independence because it doesn’t come from a company that may go out of business or be blocked from exporting to Ukraine. What’s more, a community of thousands of engineers quickly finds and resolves bugs in the software.
“The use of open-source Ardupilot is in keeping with Fire Point’s whole philosophy of rapidly providing effective long-range strike at a vastly lower cost than exquisite Western designs,” says Roy Gardiner at the non-profit group Defense Tech for Ukraine.
Gardiner notes that Ardupilot is one the world’s most extensively tested autopilots. Ukraine’s vast fleet of small drones, many derived from hobby designs, runs largely on open-source flight controllers such as Betaflight, Ardupilot and PX4.
Russia is also relying heavily on commercial electronics in its Shahed attack drones, according to Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov. Waves of Shaheds hit Ukraine every night, and while earlier versions navigated by satellite, a new “Seeker” version has a camera and Raspberry Pi 4 processor with AI software to lock on to targets, Beskrestnov said on Telegram. The Raspberry Pi, made in the UK, is used in educational and hobby computing projects.
The software on the Shahed hasn’t been identified, but smaller drones often use Raspberry Pi with open-source vision software called YOLO for locking on to targets.
Ukraine has also deployed the more conventional Storm Shadow cruise missiles developed by French and British companies, while Russia has its own high-end Kalibr cruise missiles.
But given the rapid improvement in commercial hardware and open-source software in recent decades, it is unclear how well these legacy systems, with their high costs but arguably superior performance, can compete in the long run. “Over time, expensive custom military electronics and software will likely be developed only for the most demanding requirements,” says Gardiner.
Now, small countries can produce weapons almost as capable as those of their large, well-funded neighbours, and non-state actors can make their own cruise missiles. “The dramatic reduction in cost gives many state and non-state actors access to strike capabilities that were previously available only to the wealthiest nations,” says Gardiner.