Saab has introduced a passive, lightweight, electronic warfare sensor called Sirius Compact, which is designed to act alone or in an array to locate incoming threats on a variety of tactical levels without revealing its presence.
As digital technology develops, it's surprising how much of modern warfare is being increasingly waged on a silent, invisible level. During the Second World War, Britain defended itself from German bombers by spoofing the aircrafts' electronic navigation beacons to send them off course. Ever since then, major military powers have been in an arms race of radar beams, sensors, jammers, spoofers, cyber weapons, and a bewildering array of electronic attack, defense, counterattack, and reconnaissance systems.
As part of this, defense contractors have been coming up with sensors that are not only more sensitive to incoming electronic signals, but are also smaller, lighter, more efficient, and are able to operate without revealing themselves.
Weighing only 3 kg (6.6 lb), the new Sirius Compact passive modular unit can be installed on a wide variety of platforms, or quickly deployed by a single soldier to form scalable detector networks where the sensors can stealthily detect incoming threats by their electronic signatures.
Developed by Saab Sweden and Saab Finland, Sirius Compact silently detects, assesses, and prioritizes radar and data-link transmissions. Its autonomous systems can accurately determine the bearing of potentially hostile signals or triangulate with other units to locate the transmitters for Ground Based Air Defense targeting, with an accuracy and efficiency that Saab claims is comparable with larger, static sensors, all while being easy to hide in plain sight.
The Sirius Compact can be installed in coastal and border surveillance systems, armored vehicles. and small quadcopter drones. Applications include airborne surveillance, crewed/robotic teaming, and special operations. As a further security measure, the Sirius Compact does not need to contain any sensitive data in order to function.
The Sirius Compact will go on display at the AOC Europe conference in Montpellier, France running from May 10 to 12, and at Eurosatory in Paris from June13 to 17.
"Operations in the electromagnetic spectrum of a modern battlefield are a constantly evolving challenge," said Carl-Johan Bergholm, head of Saab´s Surveillance business division. "The need to remain undetected, while deploying with discretion and agility has been at the forefront of the development of Sirius Compact."
The video below discusses Sirius Compact.
Source: SAAB