When Russian jamming neutered the recon drones flown by a group of Ukrainian special operators near Dnipro in August, they turned to a new solution: V

US-made jam-resistant drones helped Ukrainians cut through Russia EW

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2024-11-01 23:00:17

When Russian jamming neutered the recon drones flown by a group of Ukrainian special operators near Dnipro in August, they turned to a new solution: V-BAT drones built to withstand the massive electronic interference used by both sides in the war in Ukraine.

“They launched from about 40 kilometers from the front, flew 100 kilometers past the front line of troops and then found these SA-11 surface-to-air missiles [on] 11 Buks, targeted them, called in HIMARS airburst rounds,” said Brandon Tseng, president and co-founder of Shield AI, the San Diego-based maker of the V-BATs.

That destroyed the SAMs—and, Tseng said, marked a big operational test for the V-BATs: flying, collecting targeting data, and relaying it to artillery units, all in the face of the most sophisticated electronic warfare tactics on earth.

Ukraine has some drones that can perform well against EW, but they work through autonomy and on-platform computing, good for one-way attack missions with whatever munitions can be squeezed onboard. But the ability to pass data quickly back to a fires solution with real power, like a howitzer or Lockheed Martin HIMARS, is essential to taking out Russian positions. This is what the V-BAT supplied to the Ukrainians, according to Tseng, who witnessed the operation first-hand.