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QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#201

Post by MomsAVoxell »

mlfreeman wrote: post #34

The visualizer reminds me of my thermal camera. I have heard claims of devices (mostly TVs) supposedly coming with secret 5G cell uplinks built in [never heard a specific model mentioned though]. If there were more variants covering more commonly-used RF bands, people could walk around and literally check for once. (incidentally i'm sure three letter agencies have had this sort of tech in their bug-detecting toolkit…

It always impresses me that technology ideas once exposed in the nefarious background of the Snowden revelations, has now become mainstream, almost passé among the technocratie, but then I remember that there is a very dominant event horizon where all technology is weaponized/de-weaponized according to the intentions of its users..

It's going to been pretty wild to see QuadRF being applied for things. I can only imagine there are weapons-technologists who will bolt this onto hunter/killer drones at some point. A lynchpin technology for the inevitable drone wars.

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#202

Post by KaiserPro »

llm_nerd wrote: post #138

What constraint limits this to 5 - 6Ghz? Is it the antenna? Processing? It's a really neat device, but people should realize that it has a very narrow visibility.

Antennae, and the front end that feeds into the SDR.

The lower the frequency, the bigger the antennae need to be (more or less) so a 2.4gig array would most likely be 2x the size of a 6ghz array.

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#204

Post by RealityVoid »

creaturemachine wrote: post #104
RealityVoid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to CivDiv's channel about 70% of the drones used are still RC FPV drones. They are cheaper longer range and have a slightly simpler supply chain. Fiber optic cable prices have exploded because of the war.

If you count recon and droppers that can use distance to avoid jamming, sure. One-way applications are increasingly fibre.

Can you back this up with any authoritative sources?

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#205

Post by shakow »

IshKebab wrote: post #195
thomashabets2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homing in on sources of electromagnetic transmissions has been a thing since at least the BV246 in 1943. The first phased array systems date back to 1905. We have had some time to productionize this. Hell, the "PA" in "PATRIOT missile" stands for "Phased Array".

I'm not saying it's new technology. The patriot missile costs $4m each. None of the drones Ukraine is using have this tech. The new thing is that it's available for purchase for a reasonable price.

Why would they put phased arrays on UAVs? They are typically using beam-forming antennas + cheap gimbals for the same purpose.

Phased arrays are nice when you want to scan a large angular surface very fast; when it comes down to optimizing RF radiation toward your ground station, a gimbal is cheaper, simpler, and works fine.

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#206

Post by victorhooi »

radicality wrote: post #161
mrtnmcc wrote: post #95

QuadRF creator here. Happy to answer questions! We have a quick demo video as well: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvniJk3uNyA Along with a deeper dive video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJ9Tbm8ALg We didn't give Jeff great direction on camera alignment calibration or setting the radio gain but he seemed to mostly figure it out. We're improving the UI based on his suggestions (it's open source so you can customize…

Product looks cool, not sure what I’ll use it for but did just purchase it on crowdsupply :) How did you settle on that frequency range btw? It’s 4.9 - 6ghz, so it will visualize the higher freq WiFi, but I guess it will not work for the 2.4ghz WiFi, or Bluetooth which is also around that frequency? And I don’t know tooo much about RF, but would including support for that range also, have necessitated much more compl…

This does look cool - but I suspect most of the stuff I'd use it with is 2.4 Ghz (i.e. ISM band) - IOT devices, wireless keyboard/mouse, wireless cameras, drones etc

Is a 2.4Ghz version mostly about the larger physical size? Or are there other technical limitations to overcome as well?

And cost wise - would it be 2x this version ($499) - or higher?

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#207

Post by quietsignal »

noduerme wrote: post #137

Funny, in the "imagine what governments are capable of" vein, I just read this[0] a few minutes ago before coming over to HN to find this post trending. [0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-future-takes-fl...

Yep, been in the works for a while. Ericsson, Nokia Bell Labs and Qualcomm have been publishing press releases regarding ISAC and telecom providers also sees new potential market of S2aaS, especially if there is a push towards autonomous robots, vehicles that need the data for mapping & training data.

Future networks using millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz (THz) frequencies may collect or infer detailed information about people, devices, bystanders, passive objects, and environments in a sixth-generation (6G) deployment area. It may detect breathing and heart rate of biological bodies.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/1069

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#208

Post by numpad0 »

ericye16 wrote: post #30
nekusar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea its mimo 2x2. Point still stands that they initially said it would be $50-$100. And its going for $500.

I mean if a single tile is 50-100, then 4 is 200-400, so it's not that far?

I think GP misspoke and it's actually four antennas in one tile for this thing.

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#209

Post by thomashabets2 »

fer wrote: post #154
thomashabets2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a completely unrelated to what we were talking about.

How is SEAD unrelated to drone warfare? Unless you believe anti radiation missiles/drones can't target jammers.

The topic was energy expense of wideband vs narrowband jamming.

Both can be used for targeting.

Re: QuadRF can spot drones and see WiFi through my wall

#210

Post by thomashabets2 »

IshKebab wrote: post #195
thomashabets2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homing in on sources of electromagnetic transmissions has been a thing since at least the BV246 in 1943. The first phased array systems date back to 1905. We have had some time to productionize this. Hell, the "PA" in "PATRIOT missile" stands for "Phased Array".

I'm not saying it's new technology. The patriot missile costs $4m each. None of the drones Ukraine is using have this tech. The new thing is that it's available for purchase for a reasonable price.

While it doesn't produce an image, not having 2D data, KrakenSDR has some cool direction finding too.
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