New developments to counter the “shahedas”: what Ukrainian engineers have already created

Since September 2022, more than 7,000 shaheda drones have been launched in Ukraine. All this time, the military and engineers invented various countermeasures. The key task – learn how to destroy kamikaze UAVs, spending the minimum number of scarce missiles for air defense.

This is stated in the article EP.

It is noted that this summer, Ukrainian interceptor drones appeared in the sky, which are already shooting down hundreds of Russian reconnaissance strike UAVs in almost all key directions. The anti-aircraft FPV drone differs from the usual one with a higher speed and a more powerful battery for long-distance flights.

According to the EP, several teams of drone developers are working on adapting this solution against the “shaheeds”. For this, Ukrainian FPV drones should become even faster and be equipped with night cameras.

The co-founder of the company “Wild Hornets”, who wished to remain anonymous, told the publication that already in October plans to test his anti-aircraft FPV in a battle against the Shaheds. In his opinion, engineers have not yet squeezed out all the possibilities from the FPV platform. The company managed to accelerate its drone to a speed of 325 km per hour, which is almost twice the cruising speed of “Shaheed” – 180 km/h.

Height gain is not a problem either. Another manufacturer of anti-aircraft drones, General Chereshnya, recently reached a height of 5,840 meters, which is significantly higher than the declared maximum flight height of the Shahed-136.

Aircraft-type interceptor drones are also appearing on the market. One of them is called “Baynet” from the company Tenebris, which is also preparing for combat tests on Russian kamikaze drones. The company said that the maximum speed of the drone will be 250 km per hour, and the Bayonet can stay in the air for up to 25 minutes, which should be enough to shoot down an enemy target.

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The cost of such a drone with a night camera will be up to 3,000 dollars, which is ten times less than the cost of “Shaheed”.

Interceptor drones work only in a team with  small radar stations (Radar), which allow operators to see the location and altitude of their drone and the enemy target on the screen. According to the EP, in Ukraine there are not only imported, but also domestic samples of mini-radar, which are already mass-produced. , which are armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft guns and MANPADS. To increase the efficiency of their work, the defense company ZAVOD jointly with the National Guard developed machine gun turrets with stabilization. The representative of the company told the EP that thanks to their technology, it was possible to increase the accuracy of firing by nine times.

The cost of such a turret – a little more than UAH 100,000. Hundreds of them are currently in service with the Defense Forces.

The correct location of air defense units affects the successful downing of the “Shaheeds”. For this, the military uses special systems that analyze the paths of Russian kamikaze drones, derive patterns and help deploy mobile groups more efficiently.

It is difficult to monitor the entire airspace of Ukraine in real time, because this requires many expensive radar stations, which also detect their location during operation. However, the engineers of the ZVOOK company found an alternative cheap and safe solution – acoustic sensors, which respond to the characteristic sound of “shaheeds” and transmit information about the location of the target in real time.

Several hundreds of such sensors have already been produced and are scattered throughout Ukraine. The cost of one – 500 dollars They are capable of hearing an enemy target at a distance of more than 5 km and using mobile communication to transmit data to situational awareness systems.

Ukrainian UAVs are most often the cause of “locational loss” of Russian UAVs. electronic electronic system, the article says. Ukraine is mass-producing large EW systems that are able to replace the GPS signal on “shaheeds” and knock them off course, forcing them to fly in the other direction or land on the ground.