A.P. Richelieu
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2013
- Messages
- 7,724
- Reaction score
- 4
- Country
- Location
The DSP in the drones are mixed signal chips.I said you can virtualize any "hardware dedicated processing task".
ADC is to get data from real world, you can't virtualise a sensor certainly. But once you get the data digitally, you can handle it in a general purpose processor like in any other specialised hardware would do, slower.
You cannot replace them with just a general purpose processor, which is the point.
The use of DSP instead of a general purpose microcontroller indicates that running the algorithm slower will mean that the program will fail.
You forget about the flight controls, rudders etc. Those need analogue inputs.
Chinese companies that ship stuff to Iran risk being targetted by the US. It is known to withdraw right to use of patents for companies that ship parts to Iran.
That means that if they do not stop shipping parts that violate those patents immediately, the whole company will be sanctioned.
Why would a chinese company risk their business with the West to ship a few thousand chips to Iran. That would be bad ROI.
But every sensor that need flying pistachios 136 has his civil double-use product widely available (GNSS receiver, Inertial guidance: gyroscope and acelerometer, data link, and so on). AFAIK at least.
With sanctions, maybe the cost increase a little, it losts some warhead useful weigh load and some accuracy, but they can keep banging Ukraine even using a 100 EUR smartphone as only Shahed-136 digital hardware.
In the west military industry often they dont care about prices, and every little crappy thing has overrated costs.
Iran is doing something that we can call LowCost Warfare, and it must be fought in the same way.