This new Ukrainian detector can ‘see’ what a Russian drone can — and its new fiber-optic drones can also ‘hear’ enemy soldiers from 30 meters away | Daily Reports Online
- Kyiv firm CODE380 has built D·Vision SDR, a drone detector that turns intercepted Russian drone signals into live video
- It uses software-defined radio to scan 500 to 8,700 MHz, which the team says leaves no blind spots
- The device has been combat-tested with Ukrainian troops and gets software updates about twice a month
A Ukrainian engineering team has built a drone detector that does more than warn soldiers that a Russian drone is close.
It can lock onto the drone’s own video link and show an operator, in real time, exactly what the aircraft is filming.
The device, called D·Vision SDR, was first reported by the Ukrainian tech outlet DOU and detailed by UNITED24 Media two days later. CODE380, a Kyiv-based communications equipment company, made the device, which relies on software-defined radio rather than the fixed analog receivers most front-line detectors still use. That choice is the defining factor: it lets the box turn an intercepted signal into a picture.
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A software-defined radio takes the lead
Most front-line detectors use analog receivers tuned to the bands drones rely on for video and control. D·Vision SDR takes a different route. Software-defined radio digitizes a slice of the radio spectrum and processes it in software, so a single platform can be retuned and re-taught through code instead of swapped out for new hardware.
According to DOU, the detector sweeps frequencies from 500 to 8,700 MHz, hunting for the signatures that give a drone away. The developers say it covers that whole range with no blind spots and offers more sensitivity than competing detectors.
The real advantage of this approach is that when Russian drones shift frequencies, the fix is a software update, not a redesigned receiver. That flexibility is why counter-drone engineers have leaned on SDR for years. A 2022 survey in the journal Sensors framed radio-frequency detection built on SDR platforms as one of the more adaptable ways to spot small drones, precisely because the signal processing can be rewritten as the threat changes.
The developer, CODE380, is new on paper and seasoned in practice. UNITED24 Media reports that the Kyiv firm was founded only about three months ago, while work on the detector itself began roughly a year and a half earlier.
The detector has already been through field testing with Ukrainian military personnel during combat missions, according to DOU. Feedback from those trials fed back into the design, and the team keeps shipping software updates roughly twice a month.
That cadence matters more than it sounds. Drone control schemes, frequencies, and telemetry in Ukraine change near-weekly, so a detector that can’t update quickly falls behind fast.
A software-first device can absorb those changes between firmware pushes rather than at the pace of a hardware refresh, which is the difference between a tool that stays useful for months and one that is obsolete by the next offensive.
Turning a drone’s signal into watchable video is not a gimmick. It answers a specific problem that has grown worse over the past year: Russian drones increasingly carry cameras and are flown by people, not just preset to a target.
When a detector can decode that video, the people on the ground get the same view the enemy operator has. They 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. In a war where spotting the drone in time has become the hard half of survival, that is a meaningful edge.
D·Vision SDR is not alone, and intercepting enemy video is becoming a Ukrainian specialty. Babai’s Vydun 7.5 can tap into Russian drone feeds and track UAVs several kilometers out.
The drones that hear before they strike
D·Vision SDR was not the only new way to sense the enemy that Ukrainian engineers put forward that week. 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, letting them pick out Russian soldiers and vehicles by sound from tens of meters away.
The point is passive awareness. A drone can sit in an ambush position 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 it is worth the shot.
Ukrainian crews call these “zhdun” (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: an operator can hear an approaching Russian attack drone and move to a new hiding spot before it strikes.
The open question is the same for both approaches: how long any given advantage lasts. Russian drones change their radio behavior constantly, Russian tactics shift with them, and a device that looks a step ahead today can be a step behind within weeks.
A detector rebuilt in software every two weeks, and a drone that gains a whole new sense for the price of a microphone, are both bets on staying adaptable rather than staying still. In this war, that has usually been the safer bet, but only the next few months of fighting will show whether it holds.
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