United24 media publication reported, that Ukrainian engineers have successfully tested the Sky Sentinel AI anti-aircraft turret. Thanks to its artificial intelligence elements, it can detect and shoot down russian missiles and drones, including Shahed 136, without any human intervention. Here’s how Sky Sentinel works and what technical solutions allow the system to quickly neutralize various air threats.
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While russia is improving its Shahed drones and terrorizing residents of peaceful Ukrainian cities with them almost daily, Ukrainian engineers have developed an innovative air defense system designed to protect our skies. It’s called Sky Sentinel, or «Sky Sentinel», and it’s special because it detects and destroys targets on its own.
This may seem like another remote turret, a number of which, such as «ShaBlia», «Maestro», and others, we have already told before. But underneath the armor is a complex system whose main personality is the use of AI. The fact is that even the best operator’s reaction is not enough to hit a small target that is zipping by against the dark night sky. Therefore, a computer took over the duties of a too-slow human.
The soldiers only need to deploy the turret into a combat position and connect it to the radar. Then it will automatically detect airborne objects, calculate their flight path, aim the machine gun and open fire. At the same time, the built-in computer must determine the target’s speed in real time, take into account the wind and accurately calculate the point of future contact between the bullet and the drone.
Sky Sentinel works autonomously, under the control of artificial intelligence. However, it requires human authorization before firing to reduce the likelihood of error. It is armed with a heavy M2 Browning machine gun with a range of up to 1500 meters, allows automatic horizontal and vertical guidance, and can rotate 360° to hit targets at speeds up to 800 km/h.
In tests, the «Heavenly Guardian» successfully shot down targets five times smaller than the Shahed. Therefore, within its effective range, it can protect against a wide range of reconnaissance and attack drones, barrage munitions and subsonic cruise missiles such as the Russian «Kalibr».
Defeating a moving high-speed target begins with aiming and range determination. This is ensured by high-quality foreign-made optical components that have no domestic counterparts. Next, the turret’s computer has to make complex ballistic calculations, all of which were written by Ukrainian IT specialists.
But this is not enough for an accurate shot. Automation has to aim the machine gun with jewelry precision because even a one-millimeter deviation of the barrel can result in an error of tens of meters. This is where the development team faced its most serious challenge. The engineers had to reduce the mechanical backlash (gap, free play) in the system to zero.
«We created a system that moves a lot, but without any backlash, — Sky Sentinel’s lead engineer proudly explains. — And not just moving, but shooting. Therefore, it must withstand recoil». Thus, the combination of the latest optics, high-precision algorithms and precision mechanics allows a conventional machine gun without guided munitions to reliably hit air targets.
Recently, Russia has increased the production of Shahed drones to 170 units per day and improved them with the help of new antennas. In addition, the aggressor country has moved to the tactics of combined strikes, when up to a hundred drones and dozens of missiles can simultaneously attack one city from different directions, overloading Ukrainian air defense systems.
Traditional means in the form of scarce anti-aircraft missiles and fighter jets are too expensive to destroy hundreds of drones. And mobile anti-aircraft groups do not always guarantee reliable protection. Against this backdrop, relatively cheap, mass-produced and automated Sky Sentinel systems could be an effective and cost-efficient solution to the fight against the «Shahed».
According to the manufacturer, the price of one turret is about $150,000, and 10 to 30 such installations may be needed to protect one large city. With this in mind, the mass deployment of Sky Sentinel looks promising, primarily for covering small but important facilities. After all, even 10 turrets will cost several times cheaper than one interceptor missile for the Patriot, and 1000 can cover a large part of Ukraine and will cost as much as one «IRIS-T».
At the same time, the maximum height of target destruction remains an unresolved problem with the system. Exact information about it is not disclosed, but the power of the M2 Browning machine gun is clearly not enough to reach «Shahdows-136» and their latest modification «Geranium-2» at an altitude of 4000 meters. However, United24 reports that different versions of the turrets are being developed for different types of missions. So it is quite possible that in the future, Sky Sentinels with more powerful weapons will be able to remedy the situation.
| Armament | M2 Browning machine gun |
| Sighted firing range | 1500 м |
| Maximum speed of the air target | 800 km/h |
| Rotation angle in horizontal direction planes | 360° |
| Rotation speed around the axis | 150 m/s |
| Positioning accuracy | 17 microradians |
| Approximate price | 150 thousand dollars |
