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Dead reckoning in a drone would be a nearly impossible feat considering how variable wind can be.





Operation in GNSS-denied areas is already a stock feature on many relatively inexpensive commercial drones. The manufacturers talk about it euphemistically for obvious reasons, but they're designing drones specifically for the Ukraine war. There's a huge amount of engineering effort going into building drones that can remain operational in an extremely hostile RF environment.

Compensating for wind drift is a fairly straightforward software problem when you've got a fast processor, a bunch of high-resolution cameras and a laser rangefinder.

https://www.autelrobotics.com/productdetail/evo-lite-enterpr...


If you have a downward facing camera you can track your movement like an optical mouse by just watching the terrain. Error will creep in, but you only need to fly a few kilometers till you find something that looks like a strategic bomber.

I'm dumb. I don't know why I didn't think about the cameras being used to maintain location.

Dead reckoning with error correction using known landmarks like highways, maybe

The wrong term, but I know there has been extensive research in maintaining accuracy without GPS.



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