Counter-drone for the Leonidas: Greece’s armoured vehicle gets RF Hunter EW system

Counter-drone capability for a proven armoured vehicle: at the beginning of May, a new variant of the APC Leonidas was presented at the international defence exhibition DEFEA. For the first time, it featured the RF Hunter electronic warfare (EW) system from Cypriot company SignalGeneriX, as Defence Redefined reported. Even before that, the Poseidon unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Swarmly Aero, designed for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), had reportedly been successfully integrated into the vehicle.

The Leonidas is a derivative of the Austrian Saurer armoured personnel carrier from Steyr-Daimler Puch; it was built in Greece by the subsidiary Steyr Hellas SA. In the Austrian Armed Forces (Bundesheer), the Saurer has been superseded by its successor, the Ulan, since 2002. The Greek armed forces, however, still operate the vehicle, known there as Leonidas, in numerous versions.

New turret, more firepower

According to Defence Redefined, the new configuration brings operational advantages and shows how the Cypriot and Greek defence industries work together. It is also intended to upgrade an existing vehicle platform which, lacking a comprehensive modernisation package, risks obsolescence. Alongside firepower, the vehicle’s survivability and mobility are also to increase.

At DEFEA, the vehicle on display also carried a Nimrod 300 turret. Developed by Slovenian company Valhalla, it is armed with an ATK MK44 30-millimetre cannon and a single launcher for Spike-LR2 anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). The turret is intended to turn the armoured personnel carrier into an infantry fighting vehicle.

Counter-drone with RF Hunter: locate, mark, hand over

Back to the RF Hunter EW system: it is used to detect and analyse signal emissions and wireless communications by means of direction-finding techniques. According to manufacturer Signal Generix, the sensor combines the detection of all radio frequency (RF) sources with geolocation functions and marks their position on a digital map. It captures hostile and friendly communications as well as drone activity; within network-centric operations, the system can work connected to other systems.

In this specific variant, the RF Hunter determines the location and flight path of drones operating in the Leonidas’s area of operations and transmits their coordinates to the weapon system so that it can neutralise them by hard kill. This drone targeting capability significantly increases the system’s operational capability and forms an effective shield against aerial threats.

Integrated on a ground platform, the RF Hunter helps to create a complete common operational picture (COP). At the same time, the system can better detect and identify RF emissions in high-intensity operating environments.

The RF Hunter is available not only for vehicles and aerial platforms but also in portable form as a backpack system that a single person can operate. It is based on software-defined radio (SDR) technology covering the entire frequency spectrum from 30 MHz to 3800 MHz. This allows it to intercept emissions and determine their origin completely passively.