‘Nerd’s’ drone hobby alters warfare
The Ukrainian commander, code-named Magyar, was pointing to a gruesome image on the screen in front of him. A few kilometres away, under the watchful eye of a small hobbyist's drone, a Russian soldier was in his death throes as we looked on.
In a room behind Magyar were piles more of these drones, bought for a few hundred dollars each from Amazon or similar websites, and sent to Ukraine, where they are changing the face of war.
Ever month thousands of cheap drones are deployed on the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on both sides. They are used to spy on enemy trenches, give accurate GPS positions and call in artillery strikes. With slight modifications they can drop small but lethal bomblets.
They are so cheap and easy to use that any soldier, or guerrilla fighter, can deploy them.
This is all the inadvertent consequence of the obsession of a young Chinese scientist, who appears without evil intent and who is probably best described as a nerd with a teenage interest in model aircraft.
That Frank Wang’s hobby would make it easier for artillery to hit a tank from distance, or to kill people in numerous ways, was not something he envisaged.
The company he founded and leads, Dajiang Innovation Technology, or DJI, is responsible for almost all the consumer drones being used in this war and others.
More than three-quarters of drones for civilian use are made by DJI, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. They are used by photographers to capture otherwise impossible images, farmers to monitor and spray crops, electricity companies to check their pylons, and for myriad other purposes.
Wang rarely gives interviews. However, a spokeswoman said: “We deplore and condemn the use of our products to cause harm anywhere in the world. This is a core belief of the company, founded to develop drones that would make the world a better place and benefit society.”
Wang, Wang Tao to his Chinese friends, grew up trying to figure out how to make remote-controlled aircraft, particularly helicopters, easier to fly. Almost immediately he crashed and broke a new one that his parents had bought him as a reward for doing well in his high school exams.
Born in Hangzhou, he pursued this dream in his spare time at Hong Kong University for Science and Technology, before moving to Shenzhen and founding a company there with friends while still in his twenties.
He cracked how to simplify the control mechanism, and was only 32 when he put his first quadcopter - a helicopter with four rotors - on the market in 2013.
Within a year his Phantom drones, which were equipped with mobile phone-type camera lenses bought from Shenzhen's ready supply chains, were being used by photographers all over the world. Within two years they were being adapted by Islamic State to release hand grenades over the heads of troops trying to drive the militants out of Iraq and Syria.
More than a million people use DJI's drones around the world, in many cases to take aerial photos of families, friends and beauty spots.
DJI says there is not much it can do to control how drones are used, just as the internal combustion engine can power a car or a tank.
It has closed down its operations in Ukraine and Russia.