Baltic Viper's fibre-optic FPV UAS, seen at the EnforceTac 2025 defence exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany, in February. (Janes/Amael Kotlarski)
Lithuanian company Baltic Viper presented its Viper 10 Optical first-person-view (FPV) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) at the EnforceTac 2025 defence exhibition held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 24 to 26 February.
With FPV UASs originally all radio guided, the notable feature of the Viper 10 Optical is that it is fitted with a 10 km fibre-optic cable spool. This is used to both control the UAS and transmit the video feed from its forward-facing camera.
Mindaugas Varanauskas, technical director at Baltic Viper, told Janes that this configuration had several benefits. The first is that using a fibre-optic cable renders the drone immune to jamming and interception. Second, the lack of radio signals being emitted between the ground control station (GCS) and the drone means that the location of the GCS and pilot cannot be tracked using techniques like radio direction-finding. Third, since there is no risk of losing the radio signal link, either through jamming or line of sight (LOS), the Viper 10 Optical can be used to manoeuvre and strike targets inside structures. Finally, the fibre-optic cable allows for a low-latency, high-definition video stream for the pilot, ensuring that the video is not degraded or interrupted due to signal loss.
Payload considerations
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