Seeing as Ukrainian Defense Forces managed to land hits on russian helicopters using special anti-aircraft FPV drones earlier this August, russian weapon makers started actively searching for a countermeasure. Considering the practice of utilizing FPV for defeating airborne threats has not yet scaled as much, this has become a race of technologies similar to the one happening on the ground.
During the ongoing Armiya-2024 defense industry expo in russia, the Adventori private company presented a counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) solution of their making. The new Volnorez X is basically the already commonplace Volnorez electronic warfare device but adapted for use by helicopters.
Read more: For the Second Time russian Helicopter Gets Hit by FPV Drone (Video)
The company does not disclose any details about its airborne drone jammer besides the purpose of this system, outlined in the presentation materials. Specifically, it's protecting the host rotorcraft from incoming suicide drone attacks. As noted, the EW system has already seen its initial trials by flight, but it needs some improvements and finishing touches before it's good to go into service of the russian armed forces.
Here we should point out that despite being a grassroots initiative by a private manufacturer, the russian defense industry is already rushing to make countermeasures against a new prospective threat to their aviation. Although the first footage of Ukrainian FPV drones started appearing only recently and the technology of anti-aircraft FPVs was refined relatively recently, the first attempts to strike down russian helicopters date back to at least half a year ago. Some of the russians did not fail to recognize a threat before it spread like wildfire.
Still, the effectiveness of this device is questionable from the get-go considering the poor performance of the ground-based version of the EW system Volnorez. Another factor is the so-called machine vision technology which is being developed in both russia and Ukraine. It is software that equips an FPV drone with automated terminal guidance, thus neutralizing the effectiveness of any interference because even if the drone loses connection with the operator due to EW jamming, it can still find its target.
Defense Express memo: while this article was in process of writing, the news appeared that the Ukrainian Defense Forces operating in the Kursk Region managed to seize a package of baseline Volnorez EW with all technical papers included. Analyzing these valuable materials and making appropriate adjustments to FPV drones could undermine the effectiveness of this russian C-UAS device. Stay tuned for new updates on the topic as Defense Express prepares a separate report about the Ukrainian trophies from Kursk.
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