How Europe’s drone wall could work
Repeated incursions by Russian drones have forced the EU to approve a “drone wall” – a Europe-wide, integrated, multi-layered system for detecting and intercepting cheap-to-build drones – just months after rejecting a budget for the proposal
DRONE WALL PROPOSAL
RUSSIA
FINLAND
NORWAY
DENMARK
UKRAINE
ESTONIA
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
POLAND
SLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
EU frontline states
Drone sightings Sep 10-27
NATO members
Systems in each country must be interoperable
1
2
3
4
INTELLIGENCE
Aerial surveillance of enemy movements and detection of targets including low-flying drones
AWACS E-3A eye in the sky
DETECTION
Acoustic sensors: Ukraine’s highly effective, low-cost Zvook and SkyFortress systems, range 5-15km
Passive radar: Detects radio waves from drones, up to 20km
3D radar: Can distinguish UAV from birds at 4km
Airborne radar: Drone-mounted
Zwook acoustic sensor
Microphone
Sound concentrated by dish
0.5m dish
ELECTRONIC COUNTER-MEASURES
Electromagnetic disruption can disable all guidance systems – but ineffective against fibre-optic drones
Russian Pole-21 jamming system
INTERCEPTION
Cost Comparison
Standard munitions and interceptor drones likely to provide basis of interception “wall”
Patriot missile
Range 160km
Up to $4m
Anti-aircraft cannon e.g. Skyranger 30 ACSV fires airburst rounds, saturating target area with submunitions
Range up to 4km
$12,000 -24,000*
*Per engagement
Interceptor drone
UK will produce 2,000 per month for Ukraine under Project OCTOPUS
$1,500-6,000
Directed-energy weapon: Uses microwaves to disable electronics in swarms of drones simultaneously
UK’s prototype RapidDestroyer, range 1km
$0.13 per shot
Source: Euromaidan Press, Drone XL, BFBS
Pictures: Brave1, Wikimedia Commons, Russian state media
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