MIPT Pelican Direction Finding Complex

2024: Presentation of the Pelican direction-finding complex

Developed in MIPT, the Pelican direction finding system is designed to determine the location of radio emission sources. The device will facilitate the task of identifying temporary deployment points, UAV control points and drones themselves by promptly obtaining target coordinates. The main quality of a mobile direction finder is its low cost, less than two hundred thousand rubles. This is significantly cheaper than analogues in the domestic market. The university announced this on August 29, 2024.

Most of the direction finders in the military development market are very cumbersome and expensive, - said Maxim Terentyev, leading engineer of the Department of Radio Electronics and Applied Informatics at the FRKT MIPT. - The development team managed to design a mobile version of the device, while maintaining high accuracy of its operation.

Our demonstrator operates in the ultra-short wave range. Walkie-talkies, intercom devices, remote control systems for various unmanned aerial vehicles and relay devices are common in it. We conducted experiments that showed that the device created allows us to determine the direction to the radiation source with accuracy to a degree. The range of determination depends on the power of the source. Some of the sources emitting about a few watts, we perfectly looked at tens of kilometers, "said Maxim Terentyev, leading engineer of the Department of Radio Electronics and Applied Informatics of the FRCT MIPT.

The Pelican direction finding system has several use cases: the device can be mounted on a quadcopter and reconnaissance of radio signals from the air in motion, or installed on a special mast. As the developers emphasize, the latter option is most convenient in situations where you need to localize the zone of one or more moving objects. Several masts are installed on the ground, several direction finders are launched on them, which scan the space for the presence of drones and drone control systems.

We have a version of the device on a quadcopter, as well as a stationary, autonomous version. The latter is installed on a rotary device and begins to scan the space. The Pelican can work as a drone detector in reconnaissance. In this case, the device is like a walkie-talkie that listens to the air and notifies if a drone phonits somewhere nearby. Our device also solves the next level problem, namely, localizes possible undesirable enemy devices, determines the directions of their movement, "added Dmitry Sichkar, graduate student of the Department of Radio Electronics and Applied Informatics.

The Pelican direction finding complex was developed as part of the initiative work of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. According to Dmitry Sichkar, the engineers wanted to help their comrades in the SVO zone and offered a variant of the device in demand in combat conditions. The developers' immediate plans are to test the electronic reconnaissance device in combat conditions.^[1]

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