The power of innovation. Oleksandr Kardakov’s miltech designs strengthen Ukrainian defence sector. How they work

Oleksandr Kardakov’s projects have withstood numerous challenges and crises and continue to expand today. Over the last two decades, the entrepreneur has been accumulating the vast experience and expertise of professional engineers in his businesses, building a strong, energetic team. Therefore, when miltech innovations became much sought after following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kardakov was able to launch the development and mass production of such products on a short notice.

Many of them have proven their efficiency both at and behind the front lines, including the protection of critical infrastructure facilities. Forbes BrandVoice talks about those designs that can be discussed publicly

Oleksandr Kardakov

founder of Octava Defence, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Octava Capital, author of miltech designs:

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Globally, Ukraine is very competitive in the field of military technology. In recent years, our market has seen the emergence of numerous start-ups with strong R&D potential.

However, many of their designs end up as experimental prototypes only, without ever going into mass production, largely due to a lack of funding and professional engineers. Professionals with the right set of skills are actually very scarce. To address this problem, we redeploy our engineers from our other projects. We also invest our own funds in product development and scaling, as this allows us to be independent of external resources and proceed systematically towards our goal, developing the Ukrainian miltech market and bringing victory closer.

From a global perspective, I want to see a well-developed defence industry in Ukraine. Even an iPhone needs a good connection, and not only a case to put it in. It is the same with the military sector — everything is interconnected, and no chaos should be allowed. As for our contribution, we cannot announce all the new developments for security reasons, but you will see the results quite soon.

Sphere — a comprehensive system for protection of infrastructure facilities

In the summer of 2023, Oleksandr Kardakov presented the Sphere platform — an integrated solution that combines radars, acoustic sensors, and video surveillance. They may be installed around any critical infrastructure facility to protect it from kamikaze drones or other low-flying hostile aerial targets.

Sphere is fully automated: it determines the flight coordinates of an air target, predicts its subsequent trajectory and transmits the data to the units responsible for destroying the threat. Radars detect enemy drones at distances of up to 30 km, giving air defence forces and mobile fire teams enough time to neutralise them.

«The probability of Sphere correctly identifying an air target is over 90%. With that, the detection error is close to zero», says Kardakov.

Sphere has been designed as the intellectual basis for comprehensive protection of critical infrastructure facilities. ʼIt can be used both by integrating or incorporating it into other smart infrastructure security systems at the local, regional or national levels,ʼ emphasises the founder of Octava Defence.

FENEK — an acoustic station for threat tracking

A network of FENEK acoustic stations detects air targets by the sound of their engines. It can ʼhearʼ passing aircraft (planes, missiles or UAVs) at distances of up to 4 km. Special power modules support autonomous operation of the station for up to 30 hours.

Unlike other acoustic systems, FENEK uses a system of coupled microphone arrays rather than broadband microphones.

This allows not only the direction of sound, but also the elevation angle, azimuth, distance, and type of air target to be determined. Based on this data, a ʼsituational awareness mapʼ is generated and updated in real time. Mathematical algorithms and artificial intelligence technologies enable filtering of signals and cutting off the noise that does not pose a threat.

«The system successfully distinguishes between a Shahed in the sky and an ordinary moped driving down the road», explains Kardakov

According to him, the key advantages of FENEK are its mobility when deployed and price. FENEK can be used both as part of the Sphere platform to protect infrastructure facilities and individually, for example, to ensure public safety and security of territories.

Monitoring system for detecting enemy vehicles and commando teams

The ZIR smart surveillance system was developed by Compass Engineering from Oleksandr Kardakov’s Group of Companies. The system is equipped with a 50× zoom optical sensor, offering a long range of observation and a clear image. A thermal imaging camera with state-of-the-art detectors enables identification of targets regardless of adverse weather conditions or dense vegetation. The latest models are equipped with machine vision to determine the type and coordinates of objects. This greatly boosts the situational awareness of the military and allows them to respond promptly to key threats from the ground, air or water. ZIR has been put to wide practical use by law enforcement agencies, including the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, to remotely detect enemy commando teams and military equipment.

For example, border guards can deploy monitoring stations quickly and control the system remotely, which significantly increases their personnel security.

«We have already seen some effective actions and results across various sections of the state border», says Oleksandr Kardakov.

Six modifications of ZIR systems are currently available. The youngest model in the range can detect a person from 3 km away and a vehicle from 9 km away. The most powerful model — at three times the distance.

Electronic military ID card

One of the latest designs presented by Oleksandr Kardakov in February 2024 together with his company Avtor is the state-of-the-art electronic military ID card. It is intended to replace all paper documents, such as a military service record card, combatant ID card, travel authorisation, medical card, medical examination report, etc.

Electronic ID ensures the privacy and security of soldiers. The secure chip can only be read using a special app with two-factor authentication. In this way, the information will be made available, for example, to medics who provide aid on the battlefield and need to quickly determine blood type or allergies. However, if a soldier is captured, the enemy will not know much. The card is multifunctional. The chip’s secure memory may store personal electronic keys and allows using the card as a qualified signature tool as well as logging in to access control and management systems.

«Electronic ID card is not only about authentication,ʼ the developers say. This is a weapon on the information front line to help the servicemen during combat missions and save their lives», says Kardakov.