Ukraine's CODE380 has drawn attention for the D·Vision SDR, a pocket-sized receiver that picks up live camera video from many Russian drones and displays it on a screen, Defense News reported. The device weighs about 10 ounces, less than half the weight of competing Ukrainian models, one of which weighs a couple of pounds.
CODE380's receiver gives Ukrainian drone units a way to view the video feed of many Russian drones before they strike, while Beskrestnov's warnings point to limits: detectors miss some frequencies, and a shift to digital or AI-guided drones could leave receivers like the D·Vision SDR with nothing to pick up.
Ukrainian drone teams have a new way to watch the drones that watch them. A Kyiv equipment startup called CODE380 has drawn attention for a pocket-sized receiver, the D·Vision SDR, that picks up live camera video from many Russian drones and shows it on a screen, Defense News reported.
Many Russian drones send their video over the air without scrambling, so a unit with the right receiver can watch the feed and see where a drone is heading and what its pilot is aiming at before it strikes.
According to Defense News, the device weighs about 10 ounces, less than half the weight of competing Ukrainian models, one of which weighs a couple of pounds. It also listens on the radio channels Russia's newer Molniya drones began using for video in June.
Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, a radio specialist who advises Ukraine's president, said in a June Facebook post cited by Defense News that "most detectors don't see these frequencies, or see them poorly." He warned that putting too much trust in a detector could prove fatal, and has also warned that digital video could one day replace analog, which would blind receivers like this one. The New York Times reported in August that some Molniyas are AI-guided, using Nvidia chips and emitting no signals.
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