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Lithuanian startup launches open-source network to detect Shahed-type drones

123 points by giuliomagnifico

by tristanj

6 subcomments

Shahed drones have increased in altitude from ~500m at the beginning of the Ukraine war to 2000-3000m, which is a 4x reduction in noise on the ground. The higher the drones are, the less noise they make at ground level, and the less effective this ground-based microphone system will be. The drones have moved to elevations to make them more difficult to target with ground based weapons. Reductions in ground noise are a secondary effect.
The latest versions of Shahed can reach 5000m in altitude, which would largely be inaudible on the ground.

by lnsru

0 subcomment

Or it is a public stunt? I am naysayer engineer. Build acoustic detection system for anomaly detection in manufacturing line. It worked with studio level equipment with lots of noise filtering measures. First challenge was to have microphone listening to the right place and getting reliable signal. Second challenge was to amplify the right signal to a level where the features could be extracted. I doubt an old android with dirty microphone can detect anything reliably.

by MiracleRabbit

8 subcomments

If these Shahed drones have a propeller they should have a brutal signature between 0-250Hz as they are moving a lot of air. And if the engine speed of the Shahed stays constant it will be even easier to detect it ("Angry lawnmower sound".. but that's only the high frequency part of it).
There are extremely sensitive differential pressure sensors (like SDP600-25Pa) available from Sensirion that aren't overly expensive.
Use one differential side and connect it to a kitchen funnel for directional listening the other one to a plastic bottle with a tiny hole in it. This way the sensor will "Null" out the environmental pressure (which the bottle follows very very slowly) from both inputs. It then only will pick up everything high frequency which is left over (and the bottle cannot follow because of its small hole).
This way I was able to detect washing machines that have a physical link to a house from many hundred meters (machine spinning -> house wall shaking -> pressure waves) away. The speed pattern of washing machines when spinning is very unique (several steps over many seconds).
Add this with some GPS PPS frame timestamping and you should have a nice tracking network that doesn't require a lot of bandwidth. But maybe the setup must switch to analog differential pressure sensors as these Senirion-I2C sensors do not have a Sync ping for super precise timestamping.

by tpolm

1 subcomments

I wonder how this system can be protected from spam - if anyone can send data there, enemy can, too

by kamranjon

1 subcomments

For those interested there is an open source radar based phased array project here: https://github.com/NawfalMotii79/PLFM_RADAR
I may have even discovered it from hacker news, I forget now.

by tristanj

2 subcomments

SpaceX received a $4 billion military contract to do this, but with radar and from orbit.

by reboot81

1 subcomments

Wouldn’t a purpose built Esp32 with microphones aimed at the sky do a better job? It would be always on, better directional targeting.

by k4rli

0 subcomment

Sounds like a simple app with mic input being sent to a yamnet-like audio classification model for a single target detection. Hardly anything innovative?

by dzhiurgis

0 subcomment

by paganel

1 subcomments

by dmos62

2 subcomments

by AIcanbiteme

1 subcomments

Baltics are very involved in the war in Ukraine, for instance, Slovenia started NAFO.