Wednesday, March 27, 2024

After Drones, Smartphone Apps Are Ukraine’s Next Secret Weapon

Good news! They say wars drive innovation feeding back into civilian life. We will learn more about in coming months!

"Ukraine vowed to become a fully digital country just months ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion and has continued working towards that goal even as the war intensified. The Ministry of Digital Transformation led the way through its Diia mobile app portal, which now allows more than 21 million Ukrainians to access over 70 government services and to store and access 14 essential digital documents.
The same ministry, headed by Mykhailo Fedorov, has been the driving force behind a whole range of technological innovations. Its work on unmanned aerial, ground and seaborne vehicles – drones – has grabbed the headlines as they are considered to have transformed the way a modern war is fought.

Yet the work his ministry and others have done on mobile apps to support military functions, while much less sexy than drones that sink ships, are just as essential for the protection of the country.
Smart phones for smart air defense
One such area is the use of mobile phones and purpose-built apps to support the air defense effort to counter the ongoing onslaught against Ukraine’s cities and infrastructure by Russian missiles and kamikaze drones. ...
The project developers said the aim was to enlist “the entire population” in helping to spot incoming attacks in what he described as an example of “web-centric war.” As more users registered the aerial targets, an accurate track pattern could be compiled to warn Ukraine’s air defense to engage and destroy the target. ...
Without giving the details of the project, he revealed that it is based on an app that puts an acoustic sensor on the mobile phone. The data acquired by the phone is then fed into Ukraine’s “Virazh” national air defense command and control network, which combines input from around 40 separate kinds of sensors to detect, identify and track incoming aerial threats. ...
The basic idea is now being expanded both in scope and in the technology being used. The next generation system known as Zvook, which is being manufactured by Ukrainian firm Ajax Security Systems, will aim to deploy more than 12,000 sensors in the border regions of Ukraine on likely Russian missile approach routes.

Zvook will use micro-computers, rather than cell phones and is thought to be able to detect drones at a distance of 5 kilometers (3 miles), cruise missiles at 6 kilometers (4 miles), and ballistic missiles at 10 kilometers (6 miles). ..."

After Drones, Smartphone Apps Are Ukraine’s Next Secret Weapon

No comments: