Russian university acquires advanced Canadian-made drone-detecting radar despite sanctions
Russian National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET) has purchased a Canadian drone-detecting radar called SkyEye for 4.5 million rubles ($60,000), reports the news outlet Agentstvo.
According to a corresponding government contract, the university announced an auction on May 11th and received the SkyEye radar on June 7th.
The radar was manufactured by the Canadian company Skycope Technologies Inc. According to the company's website, the radar weighs less than 10 kg and can be deployed in 5 minutes. It is capable of recognizing over 330 models of drones and, thanks to artificial intelligence, can identify unknown UAVs with a probability of 99.9%.
It is noted that the radar can detect drones at a distance of up to 35 km in open areas and up to 10 km in urban areas (314 sq km). Such a range is sufficient to cover over one-third of the area of Moscow within the Moscow Ring Road (about 880 sq km).
The SkyEye radar may have been imported into Russia by circumventing sanctions. It is possible that the Russian university could have used the radar for research purposes. In late May, MIET announced that it was the first among Russian universities to develop its own anti-drone countermeasures system.