Following the successful completion of tests in 2015, Rohde & Schwarz has debuted its new R&S ARDRONIS localisation and denial suite, a scalable system designed to detect and protect against the threat posed by small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating in the 400 MHz to 5.8 GHz frequency spectrum.
In its basic configuration, the R&S ARDRONIS relies on the EB500 series of compact digital receivers to achieve detection, recognition and monitoring of transmissions employed to control these aerial vehicles. The EB500 series is typically coupled with the HE600 weather resistant active omnidirectional antenna for mounting on mobile or static nodes.
When additional data is required to identify the general direction/orientation of the UAV, the system can be scaled to include the DDF550 series of wideband direction finders. The inclusion of direction finders and multichannel antennas, such as the ADDx series, enables the R&S ARDRONIS to achieve higher sensitivity and precision. This enables direction finding and transmission monitoring for both the UAV operator and the vehicle, as well as any video feed being streamed.
If customers require an active denial component, Rohde & Schwarz will scale the R&S ARDRONIS further with the inclusion of a follower-jammer element – comprising a transmitter and antenna – to disable potentially hostile activity.
In this configuration, the system will selectively jam the short-time transmissions typically deployed for the remote control of small UAVs while leaving other active signals in the ISM band free from interference. This results in loss of the control signal, which triggers the UAVs to fall back to fail-safe mode and this forces a landing.
Another feature of the R&S ARDRONIS suite is the incorporation of an early warning capability. This allows the system to detect and localise a UAV the moment it is switched on and even if the air vehicle is still on the ground.
Source: IHS Jane’s 360