Anti-Drone Protection for Cars: The DARTZ Drone Protection Standard

For a century, armour answered one question: what will stop a bullet? DARTZ now asks a second one. In its own words, the greatest threat today is no longer the man with a gun, but the man with a drone.

Where it comes from

DARTZ descends from the Russo-Baltic works where Igor Sikorsky ran the Aeronautical Department before he left for America. In 2020 DARTZ relaunched an Aeronautical Department in Riga, and at the end of that year it showed the PromDrone Black Bee, co-developed with drone specialists Fixar: a drone that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a wing. DARTZ then gave the Prombron’ Black Alligator a drone pad on its roof.

The Drone Protection Standard grew from that work. DARTZ’s Security Department and its Aeronautical Department developed it together.

Three families of classes

JD: Jamming Drones

JD classes disrupt a drone’s communication and navigation without physical damage. They are graded by range and by the frequencies they cover.

Class	Range	Covers	Intended for
JD1	Up to 500 m	2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz consumer and FPV drones	VIP cars, police escorts
JD2	500 m to 2 km	Adds satellite navigation: GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo	Convoys, armoured transport
JD3	2 to 5 km	Adds 900 MHz, 1.2 GHz and millimetre-wave bands	Motorcades, border security

JAD: Jamming and Annihilating Drones

JAD classes combine JD jamming with active countermeasures.

• JAD1 uses JD2-class jamming, adds a takeover of the drone’s control signal and GPS spoofing to lead it away from the car.
• JAD2 uses JD3-class jamming and adds low-power lasers that blind a drone’s optics and sensors.
• JAD3 jams across all bands beyond 5 km and adds hard-kill measures, with an autonomous mode for drone swarms. DARTZ reserves it for the highest-risk protection.

SCOUT: the car’s own eyes in the air

SCOUT drones give the vehicle its own reconnaissance: SCOUT1 micro drones under 1 kg with a range of up to 1 km, SCOUT2 field drones of 1 to 2 kg with thermal vision up to 3 km, and SCOUT3 long-range drones of up to 5 kg that watch up to 10 km out.

What every class shares

All classes are built around the same core: threat detection that classifies a drone using radar, infrared and radio-frequency scanning, an automated response that picks the countermeasure, and protection designed for swarms, autonomous drones and stealthy aircraft. Options include a remote command centre, a satellite link to a drone-threat database and electronic countermeasures that adapt when someone tries to jam the car.

A second layer, not a replacement

Ballistic protection and drone protection answer different threats. The protection levels describe what the body and the glass will stop. The Drone Protection Standard describes how the car sees an aerial threat coming and what it does about it. A DARTZ is specified with both in mind, in a private consultation with the office of Leonard F. Yankelovich.

As DARTZ signs its release: For Victors, always one step ahead.