Nowadays, to counter drones in various fields, the core chain of functional equipments is briefly as: reconnaissance equipment → control system → RF transmitting equipment → antenna.
Each equipment on this chain has a set of special requirements for PCB, to perform the functionalities.
Based the chain, the PCBs are mainly fall into three categories: RF and microwave PCB, digital and signal processing system PCB, antenna array PCB, and also, common PCB to carry out power management and control systems.
Each module on each type of equipment, has specific requirements for PCB material, design, and manufacturing process.
I. What are key equipments?
An integrated system to counter drones, mainly for jamming, typically includes the types of equipment as below:
1) For detection: This is the system’s “eyes”, taking care of target detecting. It includes:
– Spectrum detection equipment: Monitors the electromagnetic environment and identifies the drone’s communication and navigation signals.
– Radar detection equipment: identify and track the movement of the drones, such as position, speed, by emitting electromagnetic waves and receiving echoes.
– Optoelectronic equipment: Utilizes high-resolution visible light or infrared lenses, detect, confirm and track the drones.
2) For Jamming: This is the system’s “fist”, responsible for carrying out jamming missions. It mainly falls into two categories:
– Jamming Equipment: Emits high-power signals in the same frequency band, overpowering the communication signals between the drone and it’s remote controller or GPS signals, intercepting or misguiding the drones.
– Intercepting Equipment: With relatively low power, it generates and emits false GPS signals or control commands to intercept the drones, leading it to devitate to a target location, or even directly taking over the control.
3) Electronic Warfare System: This is the system’s core and key point, responsible for signal processing and generation.
Modern electronic warfare systems are generally based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) technology, using programmable chips such as FPGAs to implement flexible waveform and intercepting strategies.
II. What Types of PCBs are Applied in Equipment?
These equipments have complex functions, and their PCBs are mainly falling into four categories, as following below:
1. RF/Microwave Power Board
This is the core part of the jamming equipment, responsible for generating, amplifying, and emitting high-frequency, high-power jamming signals. It directly affects the equipment’s power, efficiency, and jamming range.
For example, it emits high-power signals to overpower drone remote control or GPS signals.
1) High Frequency, Low Loss: Typically uses high-frequency materials such as Rogers and PTFE to reduce signal transmission loss.
2) High Power and Heat Dissipation: Normally use thick copper PCB board(or metal core PCB) to carry high current flows and good at heat dissipation.
Advanced designs may also use power amplifiers made of gallium nitride (GaN).
3) High Voltage Scenarios: Some PCBs that generate high-power microwaves even need to take 8kV high-voltage pulses.
Actual Cases:
– Jamming Module Board: A typical PCB board, as module for RF jamming, it could be covering 2000-2200MHz.
– High-Performance Pulse Generator: A PCB board has been specifically developed that is capable of generating 8kV high-voltage electromagnetic pulses (HEMPs) to counter military drones.
2. Digital Processing and Control Board
Responsible for signal processing, target identification, jamming strategy, and overall system control. Similar to the core processing board in Software-Defined Radio (SDR).
1) High Speed and High Integration: High-speed digital boards are commonly applied, integrating FPGAs (Field-Programmable Gate Arrays) or high-performance ARM processors.
For example, the core of an interception system to jam drone positioning, is a single PCB board which based on HackRF One, integrated with a processor, RF transceiver, mixer, clock generator, and other chips.
2) Complex Function Integration: Modern equipments tend to integrate detection, jamming, interception, and even navigating functions onto a compact substrate, requiring high-density interconnect (HDI) technology.
3) Small Size, Light Weight, and Low Power Consumption (SWaP): Especially crucial for drone or handheld devices.
3. Antenna and Array Board
Responsible for receiving signals and transmitting jamming beams on specific directions. Such as the antennas on handheld devices or phased array systems.
1) Precise Impedance Control: Strict control of the 50-ohm impedance is required, to ensure efficient signal transmission.
2) Arraying and Interference Suppression: Multi-unit CRPA (Controlled Receiver Array Antenna) systems are the mainstream solution of interference suppression.
These PCBs require complex electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), to handle crosstalk between multiple channels.
3) Multi-band Integration: Multiple frequency bands (e.g., GPS L1, 2.4GHz, 5.8GHz) are often integrated on a board.
4. Power Management and Control System Board
Responsible for providing stable and efficient power to the entire system and performing overall control.
1) For portable devices, efficient lithium battery management is required;
2) For stationary high-power devices, heat dissipation system (e.g., air cooling, liquid cooling) and power conversion circuitry are required.
For application and development trends of drones, as functions become more complex, so the counter equipments have to keep the pace and envolving towards integration and intelligence as well.
The equipments have to take care of multiple tasks, such as radar detection, photoelectric tracking, communication identification, electronic interference, signal interception.
These functions compel to increase the complexity of PCB design, manufacturing technologies and cutting-edge processes, to meet comprehensive requirements, such as high frequency, high speed, high density, and high reliability.
Kyrid specializes in PCB fabrication and assembly for over a decade, from prototype, pilot run to mass production of PCBs.
For anti-drone equipments, especially RF and microwave PCB boards, Kyrid integrates the PCB, components supply chain to SMT/DIP assembly, from firmware flashing to functional testing, providing one-stop PCB&PCBA manufacturing service, if you are interested, please reaching out to Kyrid.
