The YouTube series "Ukrainian Underdogs" by Dev.ua, highlighting small and medium-sized tech businesses contributing to the war against Russia, recently featured Kvertus. This company specializes in designing and manufacturing defense systems against UAVs, equipment for electronic warfare and intelligence.
CEO Yaroslav Filimonov emphasizes that competing with the enemy in terms of the quantity of EW devices is a "sad story" today. Instead, the Ukrainians have to prioritize quality.
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He mentions that some of the products offered by the company were developed based on specific requests from soldiers on the front line and tailored to meet the specific needs of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
"We constantly go to the front line, almost every week, and test our equipment in combat conditions. During one of these trips, the guys say, 'Man, the f**king FPV drones are a nightmare, do something," recalls Filimonov, referencing a request from the soldiers on the first line, and continues:
"This is how 'the one with horns' came into existence," he says, pointing at the KVERTUS AD COUNTER FPV jamming station, "It is designed to neutralize kamikaze drones. And when we started shipping these gadgets, the guys from DShV (Air Assault Forces – ed. By Defense Express) say — 'It's not fair, we need one that people can carry.' Thus, a backpack appeared; it's just a different format. It provides a dome of 300 meters and has a built-in battery."
The portable backpack was later transformed into one more version, adapted for installation on tanks.
"In the end, we made another device: a unit that goes under the turret to the tank commander's place, and remote antennas are set on top of the turret in safe places. This way, we have a solution for armored vehicles, too."
Filimonov also mentions another development from Kvertus called the Kraken, a universal device that can operate from various power sources, be it a 220V main, a powerful EcoFlow battery, or a generator:
"It is convenient to use because, firstly, the pin antennas create a dome of about up to 800 meters wide, on seven different frequencies. They are selected to counter FPV drones, Mavics, Autels. There is also a directional antenna with an opening angle of 60 degrees, and accordingly the operating range increases to 1.5 kilometers," Filimonov explains.
The KVERTUS AD G-6+ is the "headliner" among Kvertus products, as Filimonov calls it, due to its portability and ease of use.
Even if you don't have radio-electronic intelligence equipment, once you detect a drone visually, audibly, get warned over radio, or any other way, you just turn the anti-drone gun on and you're ready to go, Yaroslav Filimonov assures.
He notes that his company orders more and more components for its products each month. A year and a half ago the company had only 8 people to work in production, a figure now increased to 30 personnel.
"Technology is developing very quickly, and if you stop for a month or so and fall off the pace, then that's the end of it, 'say goodbye', you just don't have time … Here, look, new drones of frequencies 750 and 415 have appeared. Relatively, out of 1,000 [russian] kamikaze drones, 900 are ordinary ones and 100 are these new ones. That is, 10% of drones. In just a week, we'll receive parts to work with these frequencies," Filimonov says.
"We reinvest 80 percent of profit back into technology. We opened a metal works workshop, developed the Azimuth direction finding system, we are now developing our completely own solutions for the generator and antenna-feeder parts in order to get rid of imports altogether, and all of this is very expensive," concludes the specialist.
Read more: Ukrainians Created MS Azimuth System to Notice Drones Beyond the Field of View: Capabilities Breakdown
