Marcus Bell

Articles by Marcus Bell

• How the Military Is Solving GPS Jamming Now That R-GPS Is Dead
  Tech & Builds · 2026-07-12

  The Space Force killed its Resilient GPS anti-jam satellite program in January 2026. Here's why it died, what M-code, GPS IIIF and CRPA anti-jam antennas are doing instead, and why…

• Drone Flight Controllers Explained: The Open-Source Autopilot Brain Running Combat UAVs
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  The flight controller — the embedded autopilot at the heart of every drone — is the same open-source technology that guided Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web strikes on Russian strate…

• Three Axes, One Problem: How Drone Gimbals Keep Cameras Locked On Target
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Brushless gimbals isolate a drone camera from every pitch, roll, and yaw disturbance the airframe throws at it — using MEMS IMUs, real-time sensor fusion, and closed-loop motor con…

• Drone Ground Control Stations Explained: MAVLink, Datalinks, and the MQ-9 Flight Deck
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Ground control stations span from a $50 telemetry radio running open-source Mission Planner to hardened USAF shelters managing satellite-linked MQ-9s worldwide. Here's how MAVLink,…

• Dead Zone Autonomy: How Edge AI Keeps Drones Flying When GPS and Comms Disappear
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Russian electronic warfare can blank GPS within 5 kilometers of deployment. Shield AI’s president says 99% of military autonomous systems fail under jamming. The solution — running…

• Glass-to-Glass: The Physics of FPV Video Links Driving Ukraine’s Drone War
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Analog FPV, a video technology whose roots trace to the 1970s, dominates Ukraine’s frontline drone strikes over HD digital systems. The reason comes down to milliseconds, spectrum …

• Optionally Piloted Aircraft: The Platform That Bridges Crewed and Autonomous Flight
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Optionally piloted aircraft hold manned airworthiness certificates while enabling fully autonomous operations—closing the regulatory gap that stalls pure UAVs. From proven Afghan c…

• Pseudo-Satellites at 20 km: The Physics, Programs, and Promise of Solar HAPS
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  High-Altitude Platform Stations operate in the stratosphere at 20 km — above weather, below orbital mechanics — using solar power and ultra-dense batteries to loiter for months. He…

• Swarm Mesh Networking: The Hidden Architecture Behind Autonomous Drone Coordination
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Drone light shows and true autonomous swarms share an airspace but almost nothing else. The decentralized MANET/FANET mesh—multi-hop routing, anti-jamming MARL, GPS-denied position…

• Tilt-Rotor, Tailsitter, and Ducted-Fan Drones: The VTOL Hover-Cruise Trade-Off
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Every VTOL aircraft must reconcile two contradictory physics demands: hover requires high blade area and tip speed, while forward flight requires the opposite. Tilt-rotor, tailsitt…

• Zephyr S: Inside the Solar Stratospheric Drone That Stayed Aloft for 64 Days
  Tech & Builds · 2026-06-20

  Airbus's Zephyr S occupies the stratosphere at 70,000 feet, loitering for months with ISR and 5G connectivity payloads on power equivalent to a single light bulb. Here's how the pl…

• How a $300 FPV Drone Rewrote the Economics of Precision Strike
  Defense & Combat · 2026-06-20

  Ukraine's FPV war has inverted battlefield cost logic: a $300-to-$500 commercial quadcopter competes with munitions costing fifty times more. A breakdown of the bill of materials, …

• The Kremlin Drone Incident of 2023: What Happened, Who Did It, and Why Nobody Knows
  Defense & Combat · 2026-06-20

  On the night of May 2–3, 2023, two drones detonated near the Kremlin Senate dome. Russia called it an assassination attempt, Ukraine called it staged, and U.S. intelligence offered…

• Langley's 17-Night Drone Siege: What Happened, What Failed, What DoD Still Doesn't Know
  Defense & Combat · 2026-06-20

  For 17 consecutive nights in December 2023, unidentified drone swarms penetrated restricted airspace over Joint Base Langley-Eustis, forcing the relocation of F-22 Raptors — while …

• Abqaiq-Khurais, September 2019: How 18 Drones Erased 5% of Global Oil Supply
  Defense & Combat · 2026-06-20

  On September 14, 2019, a salvo of 18 UAVs and 7 cruise missiles struck Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq and Khurais facilities, eliminating 5.7 million barrels per day — the largest single-da…

• Venezuela's 2018 Caracas Drone Attack: First Confirmed UAS Assassination Attempt
  Defense & Combat · 2026-06-20

  On August 4, 2018, two commercially available DJI Matrice 600 hexacopters loaded with C-4 targeted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at a military parade in Caracas — the first c…

• DroneDNA and Sensor Fusion: Inside Dedrone’s Airspace Security Platform
  Counter-UAS · 2026-06-20

  Dedrone, now a division of Axon after a 2024 acquisition, has spent a decade building passive RF detection infrastructure deployed at military bases, airports, stadiums, and prison…

• Fortem DroneHunter F700: The Autonomous Net-Catcher Closing the Jammer Gap
  Counter-UAS · 2026-06-20

  Fortem's DroneHunter F700 autonomously pursues hostile drones, fires tethered nets to capture them in flight, and tows the platform to a forensics zone — no explosives, no jamming.…

• Leonidas Explained: How Epirus's High-Power Microwave System Kills Drone Swarms
  Counter-UAS · 2026-06-20

  Epirus's Leonidas achieved a 100% kill rate against 61 drones — including 49 in a single pulse — in a DoD demonstration. Here is how its solid-state GaN architecture works, what th…

• Anduril Industries: The Software Company Rebuilding the Defense Industrial Base
  Industry & Contracts · 2026-06-20

  Founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and four co-founders, Anduril Industries has grown from a border-surveillance startup into a $30.5 billion defense technology company producing aut…