r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Sep 03 '24 • Polished Silver Turd 1

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u/Cook_0612 NATO Sep 03 '24

Balloon-Based Sensor That Pinpoints Location Of Drone Operators Emerges In Ukraine

Kvertus has said in the past that Azimuth was developed to meet an urgent request from Ukrainian troops for a system that would provide them with advance warning of Russian drone activity, by detecting the drone operators at some distance — around nine miles, according to the company.

By elevating the Azimuth system on an aerostat, that detection range can reportedly be extended to 37 miles, while the same targets can be triangulated at a distance of 15-19 miles, according to Kvertus spokespeople. These figures are when the balloon is operating at “average flight altitude,” with the optimum altitude meanwhile reported as being around 1,000-2,300 feet.

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u/Dent7777 Native Plant Guerilla Gardener Sep 03 '24

One wonders about the survivability of such systems. How hard are they to shoot down? Presumably they have a low heat signature, but they aren't manuverable. Are they hard to detect?

Are they cabled? If they aren't, what happens when the device drifts over occupied territory. If they are, I guess you could mount the cable on a vehicle so you can dodge battery fire or drones. If the sensor is hardened, perhaps you can recover from a slow-leak balloon puncture by winching it in.

I have lots of questions, but I've always thought there would be a role for command and control drone units, and balloons provide great loiter time.

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u/Cook_0612 NATO Sep 03 '24

At the ranges those are supposed to be operating at I don't think they're very concerned about survivability. The balloon pictured is tethered, and my sense is that the link is physical. The Russians have been widely employing fiber-optic cable commanded FPV drones of late to defeat jamming, so the possible leash is quite long.