Stopping drone threats is good…but less so if doing so brings more drones, nearby enemy units, or artillery fire your way.
It’s not just CUAS operations. All in-field military operations face a tradeoff between the effectiveness of their electronic equipment and stealth or Probability of Intercept (POI). Any radio, radar, or transmission system must broadcast signals to receive communications and collect data. However, the higher the Effective Radiated Power (ERP) of those transmissions, the more likely the user’s location will be pinpointed by enemy electronic support measures (ESM).
As such, developing and deploying equipment with the lowest-possible ERP is of vital importance to the military.
The GAX500-3D, the world’s first volumetric persistent radar, can easily be hand- or backpack-carried into the field and used to detect UAS/drone threats. Fortunately its Effective Radiated Power (ERP) is only 3 Watts of power, which is comparable to that of a cell phone.
The top scanning radars in the market start at a power draw of 300 Watts and some reach as much as 15,500 Watts - that is 100 to 5000 times higher energy being transmitted and alerting your enemies to your position.