Army Puts Out Request For Proposal For 20 Vehicle-Based Drone Jammers

The Indian Army wants to buy drone jammers that can be mounted on vehicles and can find and stop drones or drone swarms coming from different directions.

The Army put out a request for proposals (RFP) for the jammers on January 18 with details about how many and what kind of systems it wants to buy. At the moment, the RFP calls for 20 of these jammers that can be put on vehicles.

Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) have made drone jammers that can be used on vehicles. Private companies are also working on this technology.

The RFP says that the vehicle-based drone jammer should provide full and complete solutions for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), drones, and drone swarms based on at least two sensors. “The system should be able to detect, track, identify, and destroy swarms, drones, and UAS that are coming at the same time from multiple directions,” it says.

It also says that the jammer should combine all detection sensors and identify threats to give the operator a full picture of the air situation and make it easier to choose and manage countermeasures for UAS/drones using jammer systems.

The jammer should have a radio frequency (RF) detector, a 3D radar (Drone Detection Radar), an RF and satellite navigation jammer system, and a command and control centre (C2 Centre).

Drones can be stopped in many different ways. One of the ways is to use RF jamming, which creates a lot of RF noise that interferes with the radio link between the drone and its operator. Once the RF link, which can include Wi-Fi links, is broken, a drone will usually either land or do a “return to home” manoeuvre.

The drone’s satellite link, like GPS or GLONASS, can also be broken. When a drone loses its connection to a satellite, it will usually stay still, land, or go back home.

“Spoofing” is yet another way to deal with the threat of drones. This lets the jammer take control of the targeted drone or send it in the wrong direction by giving it a fake communication or navigation link.

“Dazzling” the drones is another way to get rid of them. This means to “blind” the camera on a drone by shining a strong light beam or laser at it.

Lasers and high-powered microwaves can also be used to kill a drone by destroying its most important parts.

Counter-unmanned aerial systems, or C-UAS systems, usually use a combination of methods to stop drones from flying.