FPV (first-person view) drone technology has followed an unusual trajectory: it emerged from hobbyist racing culture and, within a few years, became a significant tactical capability on the modern battlefield. The story is not one of top-down procurement but rather of grassroots adaptation — soldiers and volunteer operators bringing consumer and hobby systems into conflict zones and inventing new uses under pressure.
As Liudvikas Jaškūnas, product analyst at RSI Europe, observes, the earliest battlefield use of small drones on the Ukraine front followed a simple pattern: “It all started bottom-up — people brought what they owned to the front, and solutions emerged from necessity. Early operators were improvising with what was available, often before any formal doctrine existed.”
Even before the large-scale invasion of 2022, operators were experimenting with consumer quadcopters in combat roles. What began with readily available multirotors adapted for basic reconnaissance and improvised tasks soon evolved as combatants iterated on design, payloads, and tactics.
The shift accelerated dramatically after 2022. What had been occasional, locally improvised uses became a widespread and organized capability. By 2023, FPV systems had established themselves as a respected element of tactical toolkits in areas of intensive contact, particularly where short-range, high-maneuverability assets produced decisive local effects.
An important contextual detail is how proximity between opposing positions influenced early FPV employment. In many sectors, the lines were exceptionally close — often well below one kilometre — which made short-range FPV operations both feasible and tactically useful. As Jaškūnas recounts based on reports from soldiers on the ground, in some sectors “one could hear the enemy talking across the river at night,” illustrating how tightly drawn certain contact lines were.
As operational patterns evolved, the effective operational “grey zone” widened, with routine engagement distances currently exceeding 20 km range in many sectors. That expansion exposed another constraint: endurance. Longer mission profiles place additional stress on batteries and platform endurance, forcing operators and manufacturers to balance lift, range, and reliable performance under load. The history of FPV on the frontline is therefore also a history of adapting energy management and platform capability to real operational demands.
The FPV community’s staple had long been small, 5-inch racing frames: extremely agile, low-mass platforms designed for speed and maneuverability in competitive settings. Early combat footage and field reports often featured these small craft; their ubiquity in the hobby sector made them the easiest technology to repurpose at short notice.
Battlefield demands produced rapid evolution in form factor. Operators began favoring progressively larger airframes capable of carrying heavier mission equipment and sustaining longer operational demands. Intermediate 7-inch platforms emerged first, and soon larger “tactical” FPV configurations became common. These larger systems offered improved stability and endurance characteristics in practical use, and a more capable foundation for mission-oriented avionics and control systems.
RSI Europe recognized this trend early in its development work and aligned its platform strategy accordingly — adopting larger FPV platforms as the baseline for its product line. This was a pragmatic decision: larger platforms provide a more stable, resilient foundation for military-grade avionics, control systems, and mission equipment, and thus support long-term operational relevance.
“From the very beginning, we chose a 10-inch platform because we could see its potential on the battlefield. Even in 2023, that size was considered exotic, but it had the endurance and lift capability to match real operational needs,” Jaškūnas explains.
A critical dimension of this evolution is payload capability. As FPV platforms increased in size, their potential to carry meaningful mission equipment rose correspondingly. Declared lifting capacities can vary by design and measurement method, and real-world performance depends on factors such as system configuration and mission profile. For this reason, declared figures must be validated under controlled and operational testing rather than assumed from lab specifications alone.
RSI Europe conducts rigorous validation of platform capability through a combination of laboratory and field trials. The company’s declared payload benchmarks are verified in practical tests that evaluate endurance, handling, and system reliability under representative operational loads.
“We test the drones not just in labs but in realistic operational scenarios. A 5 kg payload isn’t just a number — it’s a capability that the operators can rely on in the field, with predictable performance and ability to fully deplete the battery without fear of failure in electronics,” Jaškūnas notes.
The emergence of tactical FPV systems illustrates a broader lesson about modern defence innovation: capability can come from unexpected places, and military doctrine and industrial response must be agile enough to capture and institutionalize those innovations. Bottom-up innovation on the battlefield creates immediate operational benefits, but for those benefits to scale safely and ethically they must be integrated with training, command and control practices, and procurement processes.
“The frontline teaches lessons faster than any doctrine. Our role is to observe, adapt, and deliver systems that align with what the soldiers really need,” Jaškūnas concludes.
For industry partners like RSI Europe, the imperative is clear: listen to frontline operators, align platform choices with demonstrated operational utility, and invest in the engineering and validation that transform improvised tools into field-worthy systems. The story of FPV on the frontline is a reminder that necessity drives invention — and that the right industrial response converts invention into enduring capability.
