Mobile EW detectors “Ether” created for the Armed Forces of Ukraine: why it is important and what it gives to our fighters
“Eter” is essentially a “trench” electronic intelligence tool that operates in a passive mode and allows not only to localize enemy electronic warfare assets, but also to “see” enemy activity in general
The Brave1 project, a state-funded cluster for the development of military technology in Ukraine, created the Ether direction finder system, which is mobile and should be “lowered” to the lowest tactical level.
This was announced by the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, who noted that this system “helps the military to perform combat missions more efficiently, launch drones and hit enemy positions.” It is reported that this development is already at the front and is used by “some units of the Defense Forces.”
In fact, this is a “trench” electronic intelligence tool whose task is to detect signals from enemy electronic warfare equipment, as well as to record signals from enemy radio stations and to detect enemy UAV activity. At the same time, any such device acts absolutely passively, not emitting anything, but only “listening” to the air and detecting the bearing and classifying the enemy’s radioactivity.
That is, the purpose of the Ether complex is to create a system at the lowest tactical level that allows, first, to assess the electronic situation and “see” areas where the enemy has deployed electronic warfare systems, identify gaps in such enemy “defense” and use our own UAVs more effectively. At the same time, we are talking about the same “trench” electronic warfare equipment of the enemy.
In addition, it is also a means of assessing where the enemy has actually concentrated its main forces, which it has covered with electronic warfare. At the same time, it has the ability to warn about the use of enemy drones, both by recording the signals between the UAV and the control station and by the fact that the enemy usually turns off its own electronic warfare beforehand.
Moreover, as noted, Ether is a direction finder system, meaning that the deployed network of such devices allows not only to detect but also to localize the location of enemy electronic equipment, including radio stations.
Eventually, the enemy also began actively installing electronic warfare equipment on armored vehicles. Mobile systems to counter drones have already been seen on modernized T-80VBM tanks, and now the Russians are boasting that they have begun to install them on infantry fighting vehicles. That is, the advancement of enemy armored vehicles with electronic warfare equipment can also be detected by Ether in advance.
And the emergence of such systems again demonstrates how fast the struggle in the asymmetric triangle of “drone – electronic warfare – electronic intelligence” is going. When the emergence of some systems provokes a fairly quick response.
