kyiv, Ukraine — For months, drones sold by Quantum Systems, a German technology company, had worked flawlessly for the Ukrainian Army, detecting tanks and enemy troops. Then, late last year, the machines began falling from the sky as they returned from their missions.
“It was a mystery,” said Sven Kruck, a Quantum executive who received a letter of reprimand from Ukraine's Defense Ministry demanding a solution.
Quantum engineers soon discovered the problem: the Russians were jamming the wireless signals that connected the drones to the satellites they depended on for navigation.
To adapt, Quantum developed AI-powered software to serve as a secondary pilot and added a manual option so the drones could land with an Xbox controller.
An invisible battle is being fought in Ukraine, with radio signals used to overwhelm communication links with drones and troops, locate targets and deceive guided weapons.
This tactic, known as electronic warfare, has become a game of cat and mouse between Russia and Ukraine, quietly causing changes of direction in the conflict.
General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's top military commander, wrote in an essay that “the widespread use of information technology” would be key to breaking what has become an impasse in the conflict.
As Russian tanks advanced toward kyiv in February 2022, Russia initially asserted its reputation as one of the world's best players in electronic warfare. He used powerful signal jammers and decoy missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, causing Ukraine to rely on aircraft to defend itself from Russian aircraft.
After initial success, the Russian military faltered, analysts said. But as the war has dragged on, Russia has innovated by creating smaller mobile electronic weapons, such as anti-drone weapons and small jammers that form a bubble of radio waves around trenches.
Ukraine has resorted to a bootstrapping approach, such as hosting a hacking event for companies to look for ways to defeat Iranian Shahed drones used to attack cities in the country's interior, said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation. .
The techniques have turned war into a surrogate laboratory that the United States, Europe and China have closely monitored to determine what might influence a future conflict, experts said.
For many on the Ukrainian front, improvements cannot come quickly enough.
Yurii Momot, 53, co-founder of electronic warfare systems company Piranha-Tech, showed off a new anti-drone weapon in August. The weapons have an inconsistent performance history, but this version worked. Aiming at a cheap reconnaissance drone, he pulled the trigger. The drone hovered without moving forward, saturated by the weapon's radio signals.
“The whole system is more structured in Russia,” Momot said of Russia's electronic warfare program. “We are catching up, but it will take a while.”
By: Paul Mozur and Aaron Krolik
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7028021, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-12-13 21:00:07
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