Paper Planes? Ukraine Gets Flat-Packed Cardboard Drones From Australia

As previously noted, Ukraine is massively enhancing its drone fleet with a variety of new models — but few of them are as unusual as the Corvo drones which Melbourne company SYPAQ has just announced it is shipping to Ukraine.

The company is supplying the drones under an initiative launched by the Australian government last July. SYPAQ had previously pitched the Corvo Precision Payload Delivery System drones as a low-cost disposable logistics drone for the Australian Army to deliver small, urgent supplies, having developed it under a AU$1.1 million government contract.

SYPAQ were not able to give Forbes the drone’s exact specifications or details of the number of drones or the timing of deliveries.

What we do know is that the drones are supplied in flatpack form, with bodies made of waxed cardboard. In 2019 a group of Australian soldiers took on the task of assembling Corvo PPDS – and found, unlike some flat packed items, they were simple to construct using just a glue gun, knife, pen and tape (and, judging from the pictures, rubber bands). A spanner is only needed to attach the propeller.

“Corvo PPDS was easy to put together,” Lance Corporal Will Coyer, told military blog Grounded Curiosity afterwards. “Certain parts required attention to detail, but the precision manufacturing of the flat-pack kit made it simple.”

The flat-pack design makes it easy to ship the drones, with 24 of them in pizza-size boxes fitting on a pallet. The company could not discuss the price, but it is understood to be a few thousand dollars per unit. Operation is also simple with flight being programmed via a straightforward interface on an Android tablet.

The PPDS flies itself autonomously with no operator control needed. And while it will use GPS guidance where available, if GPS is jammed the control software can work out its position from speed and heading. This means the drone can carry out missions even under conditions of complete radio jamming, which is important in Ukraine where Russian electronic warfare has reportedly taken down large numbers of drones.

Why would Ukraine need a small logistics drone? They probably don’t – they seem to have another mission in mind.

“Following feedback from end-users in Ukraine, the system has also been adapted for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions,” the company state in a press release.

This suggests that the PPDS will be sent out over Russian-occupied territory with a camera or other sensors to gain information. It is launched with a small catapult and has a range of 120 km, so could potentially bring back pictures from 60 km away. This would give it the reach to direct strikes by HIMARS and other long-range systems.

It might also be adapted for ‘kinetic missions’ – delivering bombs, as other small drones originally intended for cargo have been. Though simple and basic, the factory-made PPDS is still more sophisticated than some of the home-made drones which Ukrainian forces have been using successfully for bombing, with vastly more advanced software.

Ukraine currently deploys thousands of small quadcopter drones, but operators frequently complain about their limited range and how they would prefer a fixed-wing design to fly more than a few kilometres. The PPDS looks to be exactly the kind of system now needed, both for reconnaissance and strike. In fact, it is not that different in concept to the Shahed drones Russia is getting from Iran.

A cardboard drone may not last more than a few missions, but the airframe could easily be substituted for one made of more robust low-cost material like plywood.

While one section of the drone industry focuses on ever more sophisticated and exquisite drones – the latest Reaper will cost you over $20m – companies like SYPAQ are committed to delivering low-cost expendable drones in volume. Interestingly, the company is also working on swarming software. The Russians might be laughing now at the idea of facing cardboard drones…but they probably will not be laughing for long.