Battlefield Ingenuity Gives Ukraine a Defensive Edge
Brave New World
Until they were pushed into obsolescence by radar at the start of World War 2, giant concrete ‘ears’ constituted the heart of Britain’s early warning system, guarding the island nation against air raids.
Some of these moai-like structures stood over five metres tall facing the sea. At the centre of their concave-shaped outward-facing surface, microphones could pick up the drone of approaching bombers. Air raid wardens manning these acoustic mirrors could hear incoming aeroplanes from as far away as thirty kilometres. Skilled operators were even able to distil the heading by listening to subtle shifts in pitch and intensity.
However, as bomber design prioritised speed and radar appeared on the scene, the acoustic mirrors fell in disuse. Of the hundreds built in in 1920s and 1930s, only about a dozen remain scattered along Britain’s coastline.
The detection of incoming aircraft by sound has long been considered imprecise and impractical. That is, until Ukrainian nerds looked at the ancient technology and saw an opportunity to match it to artificial intelligence. A number of startups have now developed acoustic systems that can successfully detect incoming drones, missiles, and aircraft, and determine their heading, allowing defenders to either neutralise the threat or run for shelter.
The first of these systems, designed and implemented within days after the Russian invasion, uses a smartphone app that citizens, once vetted, can use to report flying objects they hear or see passing overhead. The app is plugged into the army network and data appears instantly on the monitors of the closest air defence unit. Co-founder Gennady Suldon of Technari, the startup, likens the app to a ‘human radar’.
The company is now building a network of microphones around the country to detect and process airborne threats automatically. The network uses AI to both filter out background noise and identify the nature of the threat. It can distinguish between drones, missiles, and aircraft. The system also plots the course of the flying object via triangulation, using multiple microphones and adapting a technique long used by armied to pinpoint the position of enemy shooters.
Shoebox
An early warning system using sound waves has many advantages over radar. It is completely passive and no larger than a shoebox. Unlike radar, it emits no signals and can therefore not be detected. Also, stealth techniques that reduce the radar signature of drones or aircraft are useless given that any object flying through the air generates sound. Moreover, radar cannot readily detect low-flying hardware such as missiles skimping the contours of the land as they barrel towards their target. Sound detection overcomes that obstacle.
Ukrainian technicians have further perfected their systems which can now detect drones from about three kilometres away and determine their trajectory to within five degrees of arc.
Zvook, a Lviv startup, has used audio recordings to train its system to map the audio signature of drones, missiles, and manned aircraft. Zvook picks up incoming threats from a distance of five kilometres and can spot a ground-hugging cruise missile from seven kilometers. Zvook listening kits cost about $500 each, as opposed to $500,000 for a radar post. Data is transmitted via the public 4G network or, lacking coverage, by satellite. It is powered by solar cells or batteries and can be hidden pretty much anywhere.
Zvook takes under twelve seconds to identify a flying object and transmit its data to army headquarters and nearby field units. According to Ukrainian air defence personnel, Zvook boasts a 1.6% false positives rate which is considered excellent by any standard. The latest update of the system includes additional microphones to determine the course, speed, and trajectory of incoming hardware. This data is fed into fully-automated air defences and used to target and neutralise the projectile or aircraft. This does away with the need to switch on radar altogether after an incoming threat has been identified. A radar post, once operational, is easily spotted and knocked out by enemy fire.
A third system, Sky Fortress, remains shrouded in mystery. The company operates a network of thousands of listening posts throughout Ukraine which is also integrated with military networks for real-time updates. Sky Fortress also deploys artificial intelligence to detect Russian ordinance being hurled at Ukraine. Wisening up, Russian invaders have begun to alter the sound signature of their drones with padding. However, Sky Fortress immediately and automatically ‘learns’ these new patterns and builds the corresponding audio spectrograms. It is now even possible to discover the size of ammo charge carried by individual drones via the strain the payload causes on the motors.
European and American military leaders are sitting up and paying close attention to the stunning advances made in Ukraine on a system they earlier dismissed as hopelessly ineffective. Sky Fortress demonstrated the capabilities of its system in late June on a test range in Germany with defence officials from eleven NATO member states in attendance. All were suitably impressed and a few mull acquiring the system.
Dog Fights
Big business is not far behind with Thales putting the finishing touches on its own acoustic drone detection system, expected to be formally offered for sale later this year. However, the Ukrainian techies remain a few steps ahead. They are now equipping drones with microphones to detect enemy drones to engage them in aerial dog fights.
War has always bolstered the impetus of technological renewal as combat kit faces the ultimate test. Valuable lesson are learned. In the 1982 Falklands War it was discovered that the use of both aluminum and steel in frigates was a bad idea due to their different strength and fatigue properties which caused cracks to appear in superstructure of Type 21 frigates. Also, the use of electrical wiring with flammable insulation often caused electronics to fail whilst under attack and fires to rapidly spread throughout the vessel via cable ducts.
The cost-constrained British ship designs of the 1960s, such as the Type 21 frigate and Type 42 destroyers, were the only classes of combat ships lost during the Falklands War, whereas newer Type 22 frigates and the much older County Class destroyers managed to withstand considerable punishment without significant loss of operational capacity.
So far, the War in Ukraine has shown that heavy armour still rules the battle field but is joined by drones and rocket artillery to deliver the required ‘shock and awe’. Air defence systems also gained new relevance as did training and smal unit autonomy. Ukraine has also shown how to beat a fairly-sized navy into retreat without any surface combatants of its own. Naval drones and land-to-sea missiles have sunk at least twenty medium-to-large Russian navy assets, forcing the Black Sea Fleet to scurry as far away as possible from Ukrainian shores, effectively abandoning the Crimea and the Black Sea to hunker down in the most distant port it can find.
However, the most embarrassing lesson of all involved NATO’s inability to procure a dependable supply of the ammunition needed to sustain Ukrainian Army operations. Wars are won with logistics to feed the machine, not so much with strategy to manoeuvre the machine. A lesson worth remembering as NATO rearms to meet the threat of an expansionist Russia.
Brave New World is a series of shorter articles – mini-essays often slightly contrarian – that was started in the aftermath of the Corona Pandemic as the world tried to make sense of what just happened and adjust to a new normal. Whilst the effects of the pandemic have since waned, leaving only barely discernible ripples, the world order has suffered continued upheaval.
On Europe’s eastern fringe, a vicious war rages; the Palestinian conflict has flared up as never before; China threatens the stability in the South China Sea, crossed by one of the world’s most important shipping lanes; the hard right is on the march in Europe, and in the United States a good man refuses to acknowledge the inevitable ravages of old age, clinging almost desperately to power, and leaving voters little choice but to go with another old man whose democratic credentials are doubtful if not absent.
In light of this conspiracy of events – the gathering, if you will, of a ‘perfect storm’ – CFI Press has decided to resurrect its Brave New World series in an attempt to follow developments, map their consequences, and distil sense from the ‘Bitches Brew’ simmering on the stove and coming perilously close to a spill. Brave New World instalments will be published every Friday.
- © 2018 image by DeviantArt
- © 2010 Photo by Si Gardner
