Pole-21 electronic countermeasures system to enter in service with Russian armed forces TASS 11310161

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Defence & Security News - Russia
 
Pole-21 electronic countermeasures system to enter in service with Russian armed forces.
The Russian Army has adopted Pole-21 electronic countermeasures system from Electronic Warfare Scientific and Technical Center JSC, according to the Izvestia daily. The Pole-21 is designed to protect strategic installations against enemy cruise missiles, smart bombs and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) reliant on the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou positioning systems for navigation and guidance.
     
The Russian Army has adopted Pole-21 electronic countermeasures system from Electronic Warfare Scientific and Technical Center JSC, according to the Izvestia daily. The Pole-21 is designed to protect strategic installations against enemy cruise missiles, smart bombs and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) reliant on the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou positioning systems for navigation and guidance. Russian soldiers train to use countermeasure electronic system
     
The system consists of R-340RP ECM devices that are mounted on cellular service providers’ masts, integrated with their transmitting antennas and pooled into a single network jamming the satnav signal in large areas through and through.

"At present, the device has passed the tests and entered service," a Russian Defense Ministry official close to the subject said. The manufacturer has confirmed the the work on the system being in progress, but decline to comment.

All satnav systems are based on the transmission of the simple signal by their satellite constellations. Therefore, a slightest deviation from the operating frequency even for a millisecond results in the deterioration of positioning accuracy. The signal is transmitted in a rather narrow waveband called reference frequency, expert Anton Lavrov says. Present-day jammers are designed to jam specifically the reference frequency, which is easy enough due to its being narrow and a strong enough noise jamming signal being used.

Mention should be made that all four positioning systems the Pole-21 is designed to jam use the frequencies that are close enough to one another within the 1176.45M-1575.42MHz frequency bracket. That a puny 20W transmitter is enough to jam the positioning signal within the 80-km radius speaks volumes of the ability of the sophisticated Russian system to provide impenetrable ECM coverage.

The operating principle of spatially distributed satellite navigation system ECM systems, as the Pole-21 is called officially, is simple enough. According to the Electronic Warfare in the Armed Forces subject collection and RU 2539563 patent (re: the database of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property), the R-340RP is mounted onto a mobile communications mast, which maximizes its coverage. Mind you, the system not only relies on the mast’s power supply, but also uses its GSM transmit-receive antenna as a backup control and data transmission channel.
     
The Russian Army has adopted Pole-21 electronic countermeasures system from Electronic Warfare Scientific and Technical Center JSC, according to the Izvestia daily. The Pole-21 is designed to protect strategic installations against enemy cruise missiles, smart bombs and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) reliant on the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou positioning systems for navigation and guidance. Russian army has a full range of military countermeasure systems as the Krasuha-4
     
At the same time, the system has a drawback. Its manual says: "The drawback of the system is that its electronic countermeasures affect both the enemy using the GPS radio navigation system and the domestic users of GPS and its Russian analog, GLONASS."

"Sure, by installing one’s equipment on the masts, one can use the infrastructure of mobile service providers, e.g. their power supply or transmitters, as back-up control channels," says Denis Kuskov, director general of the Telecom Daily research company. "There is a snag, however. The military cannot just show up with their gear at the base stations, it needs permission to do so, e.g. Roskomnadzor [Federal Service for Communications and Information Technologies] will have to introduce amendments or addenda to the current legal framework for this purpose."

Roskomnadzor and the VimpelCom Company (Beeline brand name) declined to comment. Mobile communications provider MTS says it is unaware of any project like that. In addition to the cellular service providers, infrastructure operators have similar masts too. Russia’s three major players on this market are Russian Towers, Link Development and Vertical. Their representatives refrained from comment, according to the Izvestia daily.
     
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