Researchers at UC Irvine have a more updated Adversarial Machine Learning attack that appears to work on drones.

By creating an umbrella with a specially painted top, the researchers were able to confuse the AI tracking and navigation of a DJI Mini 4 Pro drone and cause it to crash. The method is called the FlyTrap attack and is a visual pattern that performs a next-gen physical distance pulling (PDP) attack that works across multiple angles, even in motion in real settings.

The printed visual draws victim drones closer as its neural network tracking systems interpret the pattern to be the subject moving further away. As the drone approaches the umbrella, the pattern causes the targeting bounding box to continue shrinking – so the drone moves to get closer. Autonomous drones lured by the pattern can then easily be ensnared using a net gun, or further induced to crash to Earth.

None of this would stop a human-controlled drone of course (like we see in Ukraine). But as drone warfare becomes more and more autonomous – it would take down fully autonomous drones. Perhaps modern camo clothing needs to become anti-AI patterned more than traditional human visual camouflage. Or perhaps screens of this kind of camo can be used to protect bases or encampments.