AARTOS

German electronic warfare technology company Aaronia AG will make its first public presentation of the AARTOS DF2 direction-finding solution at AOC Europe in Helsinki from May 19 to 21, 2026. The AOC Europe conference, organized by the Association of Old Crows and described as the leading European electronic warfare symposium, brings together decision-makers from armed forces, government agencies, the defense industry, and academia. Aaronia, headquartered in Strickscheid in Germany's Eifel region, is presenting across multiple product lines at Booth 4F21, with the centerpiece being the SPECTRAN V6 Mobile portable spectrum analyzer and the full AARTOS direction-finding and counter-UAS product family. The SPECTRAN V6 Mobile is the product that anchors Aaronia's exhibition presence, and its specifications are worth examining for what they mean operationally. The device covers a frequency range from 9 kilohertz to 140 gigahertz with a real-time bandwidth of 490 megahertz and a sweep speed of 3 terahertz per second, according to Aaronia's press release. The company describes it as the world's first portable real-time spectrum analyzer with those combined specifications, a claim that cannot be independently verified from available sources but that reflects the general direction of portable spectrum analysis technology in recent years. For a field operator trying to detect, classify, and locate drone controllers, jamming signals, or radar emissions in a complex electromagnetic environment, the combination of wide frequency coverage and high-speed real-time processing means the device can capture transient signals, brief transmissions that conventional sweeping analyzers would miss entirely, across a frequency range that encompasses virtually every radio frequency system currently in military or commercial use. The 15-inch display reaching 1,500 nits of brightness is an operational detail rather than a marketing specification, addressing the practical problem that any field equipment must remain readable under direct sunlight for the soldiers and operators using it. The SPECTRAN V6 platform serves as the hardware foundation for the full AARTOS DDS product family, which Aaronia produces in variants from the X2 to the X9 for integrated drone detection, classification, and geolocation applications. Counter-UAS has become one of the most urgently resourced capability areas in European defense since Russia's systematic use of Shahed-series drones against Ukrainian infrastructure and the proliferation of first-person-view kamikaze drones as direct attack weapons against armored vehicles and personnel. Detecting and localizing drone control signals — identifying not just the drone itself but the operator transmitting commands — requires exactly the kind of broadband, high-speed spectrum analysis that the SPECTRAN V6 platform provides, and integrating that detection capability with direction-finding and geolocation produces a system that can cue kinetic or electronic countermeasures against both the drone and its operator simultaneously. The direction-finding systems Aaronia is presenting at Helsinki represent the operational layer above the spectrum analyzer hardware. The AARTOS DF2, DF4, and DF9 product lines range from compact handheld systems for individual operators to networked multi-sensor architectures for area-wide geolocation, according to the company's release. The new generation of IsoLOG DF antennas supports angle-of-arrival real-time direction finding up to 18 gigahertz, with an extension to 40 gigahertz currently in development. The system additionally integrates Power of Arrival and Time Difference of Arrival algorithms for lower-frequency signal localization, enabling the automatic 3D triangulation of transmitters and full recording of flight paths, with integrated camera systems providing optical verification of detected objects and their payloads. That combination, radio frequency detection, directional localization, and optical confirmation in a single integrated system, addresses the operational requirement that drone detection systems must satisfy before a commander can authorize an engagement: positive identification of the threat, its location, and its character. The PowerLOG horn antenna series, covering frequencies up to 70 gigahertz, extends the system's coverage into the millimeter-wave bands where some advanced radar and communications systems operate, complementing the IsoLOG DF antennas in a portfolio that Aaronia describes as covering both mobile and stationary applications. The modular architecture of the overall system, in which multiple SPECTRAN V6 units can be networked together through the RTSA-Suite PRO software, allows the coverage area and detection sensitivity to scale with the number of sensors deployed rather than being fixed by any single hardware configuration. The AOC Europe theme of electromagnetic spectrum superiority reflects where European defense priorities have landed after three years of observing how spectrum dominance and denial have shaped outcomes in Ukraine. Jamming GPS, spoofing navigation signals, intercepting drone control links, and detecting radar emissions before they detect you have moved from specialized electronic warfare unit capabilities to baseline requirements for ground units operating in contested environments.

AARTOS

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AARTOS

German EW firm Aaronia debuts new counter-drone spectrum tools

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