Netline unveils its C-Guard Micro; light, compact dedicated to EOD teams
By Paolo Valpolini
Netline, the Israeli jamming specialist, took profit of Milipol to unveil its newest member of the C-Guard family of EOD jamming units, the Micro. Until now the lightest solution available was the manpackable one, which could also be carried by trolley, however the Tel Aviv-based company went further in reducing size and weight, giving birth to the Micro version.
“Netline developed its new product due to feedbacks from users who needed a portable system allowing them to operate hands-free, and who could not afford the luxury of taking with them a trolley,” Yallon Bahat, the company CEO told EDR On-Line during Milipol Paris. The small form factor of the C-Guard Micro allows EOD personnel to reach areas where it was previously impossible to deploy an effective jammer against RC-IEDs. The C-Guard Micro exploits the building blocks of the Netline family of jammers, and is based on the company Software Defined Radio platform. This allows to easily reconfiguring the system once the environment is known. Should the system be carried close to the IED by a robot, it is very easy to clear the radio channel used to drive the UGV towards its target, and to command the arm deploying the jammer.
The C-Guard Micro signal source is generated by Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) and Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) that allow delivering signals over a broad range of frequencies with complex waveforms. The transmission power is 15 W, the system being powered by a battery that ensures a 60 minutes operating time, however should it be deployed on board an EOD robot it can also be powered by the latter battery, increasing the operating time. The battery is external, which means that if carried by an individual the power source can be fitted in another pocket i.e. to balance the weight.
The C-Guard Micro comes in the form of a parallelepiped which dimensions are 190x210x120 mm. The full 3-band version covers the whole frequency range between 25 MHz and 6 GHz, which includes VHF/UHF, 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G cell phone standards, ISM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth links.
Beside the full frequency system, two 2-band sub-versions are also available, one with frequency coverage between 25 MHz and 2.7 GHz, and one that does not cover the VHF band, as it works between 700 MHz and 6 GHz.
The C-Guard Micro weight varies from 2.5 to 5 kg depending on its configuration. It depends on the number of bands, the 2-band versions weighing some one third less of the full coverage version, and on the battery configuration, internal or external and of different size. The full coverage system employs three antennas, one per band, the 2-band versions obviously using only two antennas. Being software-based, the C-Guard Micro can be easily reconfigured in order to counter new emerging threats that EOD teams might face during their missions.
Netline is also heavily involved in the counter-drone field, proposing stand-alone solutions capable to detect, identify, locate and jam the incoming threat. “In this area we are working on next generation systems, which will be capable to handle more frequencies, to provide a better accuracy, and to operate at longer ranges,” Netline CEO concluded.
Photos courtesy Netline and P. Valpolini
