The optical drone "Prince Vandal Novgorodsky" is used by the Russian troops as an ambush drone. This was stated in an interview with TASS by Alexey Chaadaev, General Director of the Scientific and Production Center (SPC) "Ushkuynik" in Veliky Novgorod.
„Speaking of major improvements, since spring the possibility of using it as an ambush drone has been added - as a "waiting drone", which means that the drones fly somewhere, land and wait for their victims. Many changes have also been made, so to speak, under the hood. In addition, the technical range of the drone has been increased and coils have been added with increased range“, said Chaadaev.
According to the specialist, the drone has undergone significant changes since it entered service in August 2024. “Today, drones are completely different machines from those that flew 1.5 years ago. All that is left of these drones is the shape of the frame. At some point, we began to receive a constant stream of feedback from soldiers using the drones. And we have not only a collection of proposals from individual teams, but also statistics. Therefore, from a certain point on, the development and technical improvement of “Prince Vandal“ is based not only on the engineering thought of the development team, but also on a structured, statistically processed flow of failures, requests, situations and specific scenarios of use“, Chaadaev noted.
The head of the Ushkuynik Research and Production Center emphasized, that another major improvement is the addition of an initiation board and electronic target sensor to the drone. “In videos posted online, you can see protruding “whiskers“ from the front, which are used to detonate the warhead upon impact with an object. The initiation board allows the operator to detonate the drone from the control panel and many other options“, he said.
Chadayev cited the development of a cast fiber-optic spool as one of the significant changes. “The first spools for KVN were printed on 3D printers. The switch to a standard cast spool improved the statistics of damage and breakage. A single board was also created to house all the electronics, which significantly reduced production costs“, he said.