Counter-Drone Detection System Product

Overview

A counter-drone system detects, classifies, tracks, and — when authorized — defeats small unmanned aircraft. The targets are hard: a consumer quadcopter presents a radar cross-section near 0.01 m², flies at treetop height among birds at similar speeds, and may approach at 20 m/s, leaving minutes or seconds between first detection and arrival. No single sensor handles this, so fielded systems fuse three complementary layers: passive RF, active radar, and electro-optics, combined by the Processing and Fusion Unit into one air picture and connected to effectors through a Defeat Interface.

Detection layers

The RF Sensor Subsystem is the workhorse against commercial drones. Most consumer aircraft maintain a control link and a video downlink in the ISM bands (2.4 and 5.8 GHz) plus known proprietary frequencies; the Wideband Receiver sweeps 70 MHz to 6 GHz and matches hopping patterns and frame structures against the Protocol Library Unit, often identifying the exact model — and reading its broadcast Remote ID where present. The DF Antenna Array direction-finds both the aircraft and, critically, the pilot's transmitter, the only sensor in the stack that locates the operator. Detection ranges run 2–5 km. The blind spot is fundamental: a drone flying a pre-programmed waypoint mission with radios silent emits nothing.

That gap is the radar's job. The Surveillance Radar is a small X- or Ku-band 3D AESA — typically four fixed AESA Panel faces giving hemispheric coverage with no moving parts — detecting micro-drone targets at 1–5 km regardless of their emissions. The discrimination problem is birds, which match drones in RCS and speed. The Radar Processor separates them by micro-Doppler: spinning rotor blades modulate the return with a signature flapping wings do not produce, and the coherence of the Radar Exciter waveform is what makes that modulation measurable.

Neither RF nor radar gives an operator legal confidence about what is flying. The EO/IR Camera Turret does: cued onto a track, the Pan-Tilt Unit slews at over 100°/s and the Daylight Camera or Thermal Camera resolves the airframe — and whether it carries a payload — at beyond a kilometer. The Video Tracker then holds the gimbal locked in the image domain, surviving radar fades.

Fusion and command

The Fusion Server correlates plots across sensors so one aircraft produces one track instead of three disagreeing ones, and the Classifier Module scores each track as drone, bird, manned aircraft, or clutter from kinematics, micro-Doppler, RF signature, and imagery together. Operators work from the Operator Station: a map-based C2 display with geofenced alert zones, an Alert Unit that escalates by threat class, and track histories. Every detection and video frame is preserved time-synchronized in the Recording Unit — prosecution of a drone incursion and engineering tuning both depend on that record. End-to-end reaction time from first detection to operator alert runs under five seconds.

Defeat

The detection system itself does not jam or shoot; it cues effectors through the Defeat Interface. The Jammer Control Block commands band-selective RF inhibition — breaking the control link typically triggers the drone's return-to-home or land failsafe, while GNSS denial removes its navigation — with transmissions shaped to limit collateral denial of spectrum that legitimate users share. The Cue Converter turns fused track positions into pointing for directional effectors, and the Effector Gateway speaks the command protocols of third-party interceptors or guns. Engagement authority is hardware-enforced: the Authorization Module requires keyed human release, with arm/fire on the guarded hard keys of the Control Panel, physically separate from the map display. In most jurisdictions RF defeat is restricted to specific government agencies, so many installations run detection-only with defeat hardware absent.

Siting

Performance is set as much by siting as by hardware. Sensors mount on the Mast Assembly 6–20 m above local clutter, on surveyed Sensor Bracket that put radar, RF, and camera in one coordinate frame; mast sway under wind must stay within the boresight budget, hence the Guy Kit. The whole 1–3 kW load rides through the UPS Unit so the air picture never drops during generator transfer — coverage gaps are precisely what a deliberate attacker waits for.