Drones Latam SIGINT Micro Signals Intelligence Collection UAS for Tactical Electromagnetic Reconnaissance

The Drones Latam SIGINT Micro is the fixed-wing UAS designed for the tactical electromagnetic reconnaissance mission where the commander needs to locate enemy radio emitters — command posts, command and control vehicles, artillery positions communicating by radio — without exposing human reconnaissance personnel to enemy fire and without the acoustic signature of a higher-power multirotor UAS detectable at 500 meters.

The interchangeable SIGINT payload — connected via standard interface in 90 seconds without tools — passively captures the spectrum from 20 MHz to 6 GHz with 1 kHz frequency resolution, automatically identifying VHF/UHF tactical radio modulations (AM, FM, P25, DMR, TETRA), LTE/4G cellular telephony emissions from commercial devices used as improvised tactical radios, and Wi-Fi access points from improvised tactical local area networks, without transmitting any signal that would betray the UAS presence.

Emitter geolocation operates via TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival): the UAS makes three passes in an oval orbit over the search area, and the ground processing system calculates the arrival time difference of the emitter signal at each of the three points in the orbit, triangulating the emitter position with 15-meter accuracy at 3 km range — sufficient to designate the target for artillery fire or to send a capture team with the emitter's GPS position — without direct visual contact with the target.

The GCS data link operates on adaptive 2.4/5.8 GHz frequency with FHSS frequency hopping and AES-256 encryption, transmitting in real time the captured spectrogram, identified signal parameters, and estimated emitter position. The 90-minute endurance covers 2-3 geolocation passes over an operations area of 25 km radius from the launch point.