Rohde & Schwarz unveils ARDRONIS Effect counter-UAS

ARDRONIS provides protection of assets ranging from armoured vehicles and naval vessels to military installations and critical civilian infrastructure. (Rohde & Schwarz)

Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) unveiled a new multiband jamming functionality for its Automatic Radio-controlled DRONe Identification Solution (ARDRONIS) Effect system at the beginning of April. ARDRONIS Effect is designed to disrupt jam-resistant unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) including swarms, in the most contested and congested operating environments using preventive and reactive jamming methods, according to R&S.

The system is controlled by R&S ARDRONIS Control Center software and can be operated in a standalone configuration or together with systems from the ARDRONIS family. This family includes the ARDRONIS Detect, ARDRONIS Locate Compact, and ARDRONIS Locate Advanced systems, which when combined can detect, identify, track both the UAS and its operator, and disrupt them.

ARDRONIS Effect can also be networked into any open counter-unmanned aircraft system of systems thanks to an open architecture and ease of integration, according to R&S. The company's product manager for C-UAS solutions, Jan Link, said, “The main challenge of ARDRONIS Effect is to jam a wide area but in a way that is effective enough to stop the operation of weaponised FPVs [first person views] or intelligence-gathering drones. This requires ARDRONIS Effect to jam simultaneously on multiple bands at high output power across the entire spectrum without gaps in time and frequency.”

The system has a frequency range of 400 MHz to 6 GHz, with output power up to 250 W on any frequency and can conduct active jamming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to R&S.