Last Mile Tracking

Last mile tracking refers to a drone or guided weapon's ability to recognize and chase down a target entirely on its own in the final moments before reaching it, without any outside signal or human remote control.

Think of it like package delivery. A big delivery truck can use maps and GPS to get exactly to the right neighborhood, but the driver still has to look with their own eyes to figure out which door to leave the package at. Drones and missiles work similarly. They can fly long distances using satellite navigation or radio signals, but as they get closer to the target, an adversary can often jam or cut off those signals. That means the final stretch — the last mile — has to be flown using only camera vision and onboard judgment.

Because of this, it becomes crucial to train these systems in advance on what the camera will actually see — that is, footage captured on a real battlefield. A system trained on real combat footage recognizes targets far better than one trained on computer-generated fake imagery.

A table in the article cites Ukrainian interceptor drones as having roughly 95% autonomy. The hardest part of this autonomous flight is the last mile — the final stretch where communication is most likely to be jammed as the drone nears its target — where the drone must track the target entirely on its own. Contrary to the common misconception, this doesn't mean the drone flies from start to finish with zero human involvement; rather, it means the drone can hold its own through the critical moment when the signal drops out.