For those interested there is an open source radar based phased array project here: https://github.com/NawfalMotii79/PLFM_RADAR
I may have even discovered it from hacker news, I forget now.
Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
51–60 of 104 posts
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
At those higher altitudes they are trivial for radar to detect, and from farther away too. They are adapting cheap commodity used marine radars to get this done in some places I suspect the Shaheds are going higher to mitigate AA ground fire. Higher up you have to send a missile or interceptor up. It’s a trade off.
And interceptors are more expensive than Shaheds. A $100k interceptor (guessing here) to shoot a $10k Shahed can be an acceptable deal for the side launching the Shaheds.
Interceptor in this case refers to reusable aircraft. They are sending up cheap to operate prop planes to intercept Shaheds in Ukraine now.
Sending up a plane that costs $500/hour to operate to take down a few Shaheds an hour works out really well.
YouTube has plenty of videos of these guys going up and just shooting them out of the air.
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#53AFAIK started by a fellow HN’er
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#54Sounds like a simple app with mic input being sent to a yamnet-like audio classification model for a single target detection. Hardly anything innovative?
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#55If these Shahed drones have a propeller they should have a brutal signature between 0-250Hz as they are moving a lot of air. And if the engine speed of the Shahed stays constant it will be even easier to detect it ("Angry lawnmower sound".. but that's only the high frequency part of it). There are extremely sensitive differential pressure sensors (like SDP600-25Pa) available from Sensirion that aren't overly expensiv…
Nice. And instead of smartphones, dedicated sensor using esp32 makes more sense imo.
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#56Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#57Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's about danger of interceptors vs danger of detection. What's with that "vs" trade-off? You're saying avoiding detection requires high altitudes. What do interceptors have to do with that?
Interceptors are battery powered and their energy budget and thus range suffers if they have to climb high. Detection is facilitated by radar, low altitude means flying under the radar (due to curvature of the Earth) - except radar network is now so dense, it in practice can't work anymore. So they can fly low or high they will be detected anyway - but flying high reduces interceptor's reach and makes intercept geome…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(drone)
The distance to the horizon at sea level, is 5km, a high flying drone only increases that.
With a 25k range and a 10k ceiling, and a stupid low unit cost it is dead easy to deploy this en mass to protect vital infrastructure and deny lower visibility routes (valleys, places where detection range is short).
They (Ukraine) are heavy users of YOLO (image model) that runs on some very low end hardware (sub .35 watt for the most efficient models) - and have shown it to be effective for terminal guidance.
The US has a budget item for 2027, DAWG (defense autonomous war group) - that requested 54 billion dollars. This is larger than the USMC's entire budget. This is a quite admission (another one) that the US is far behind, and the things that are going on in the Ukraine are, terrifying.
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#59[flagged]
Multi billion dollar spend to “see” $2,000 aircraft and try to shoot it down with multi million dollar equipment. The speed to produce and cost effectiveness of these drones are seemingly at a massive advantage right now vs Defense capabilities and straight up cost and looks to be that way for a good while.
Apples != oranges
Re: Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
So film the sky during charging and run a llm on it?
Clouds and nighttime are a barrier to visual detection. Even with good effectiveness the conditions needed for that would mean that you have far less than 50% uptime, and your downtime is predictable to your adversary. A cheap radar takes an order of magnitude less power to run on hardware that is cheaper than an LLM and can see way farther than a camera.
Radar can't effectively see the new low-altitude small fiber optic spool first-person drones that are redefining frontline war.
The solution is going to be multi-modal (optical + audio) and imperfect. The above poster is correct that an ordinary camera with computer vision (not an LLM, of course) is going to be part of the multimodal defense in depth.
Shahed-type one-way attack drones are important to defend against, but not as impactful in terms of frontline body count, given they just slam into a pre-programmed target.