A Kyiv communications company, CODE380, has built a drone detector that can lock onto a Russian drone’s video link and show an operator, in real time, exactly what the aircraft is filming.
The device, D·Vision SDR, was first reported by the Ukrainian tech outlet DOU and detailed by UNITED24 Media two days later. It uses software-defined radio rather than the fixed analog receivers most front-line detectors still use, so an intercepted signal can be turned into a picture. According to DOU, it sweeps frequencies from 500 to 8,700 MHz. The developers say that range has no blind spots and that the detector is more sensitive than competing devices. When Russian drones shift frequencies, the fix is a software update rather than a redesigned receiver. The team ships updates roughly twice a month, a pace matched to control schemes, frequencies and telemetry in Ukraine that change near-weekly.
UNITED24 Media reports that CODE380 was founded only about three months ago, while work on the detector began roughly a year and a half earlier. DOU says the device has already been field-tested with Ukrainian military personnel during combat missions, and feedback from those trials fed into the design.
Decoding the feed answers a problem that has grown over the past year: Russian drones increasingly carry cameras and are flown by people rather than only preset to a target. People on the ground can see what the drone is looking at, judge whether they are the target, and decide whether to scatter, take cover, switch on a jammer or hold still. Intercepting enemy video is becoming a Ukrainian specialty. Babai’s Vydun 7.5 can tap Russian drone feeds and track UAVs several kilometers out.
The same day UNITED24 Media covered the detector, it also reported that drone maker Ptashka Drones had fitted its fiber-optic FPV drones with microphones so they can pick out Russian soldiers and vehicles by sound. The aim is passive awareness: a drone can sit in ambush and listen rather than give itself away by moving or sweeping a camera. By the manufacturer’s figures, the microphones catch loud conversation at 20 to 30 meters, light vehicles at 50 to 100 meters, and heavy vehicles out to 200 meters. A crew can work out what is coming by ear, then decide whether the shot is worth taking.
Ukrainian crews call these zhdun, or waiter, drones: aircraft that land near an expected Russian route and wait until a target comes into range. On announcing the modification, Ptashka Drones wrote on its Telegram channel that it is important not only to see well, but also to hear. The microphones also serve as early warning, so an operator can hear an approaching Russian attack drone and move to a new hiding spot before it strikes.
Russian drones change their radio behavior constantly and Russian tactics shift with them. A detector rebuilt in software about every two weeks, and a drone that gains a new sense with a microphone, are both bets on staying adaptable. The article says only the next few months of fighting will show whether that advantage holds.