Stage I · in development
Falkonis Nest
An early-warning node shaped like a nest box. It listens for the radio signals a drone cannot help emitting, and says nothing about itself while doing so.
0W radiated
The sensing path receives only. Nothing on the air to locate.
≈ 0km design range
Prototype target against a common commercial drone.
0days unattended
Battery and solar, through a Baltic winter.
In the field
What happens when something comes
Scroll the diagram sideways →
- 1 The node
- Mounted three to six metres up a tree, pole or wall. Solar panel on the roof, everything else inside.
- 2 Detection envelope
- A dome of radio coverage around the node. The first prototype is designed against roughly one kilometre.
- 3 The drone gives itself away
- Its control link and video downlink are continuous transmissions. That is what the node is listening for.
- 4 Alert in seconds
- A short cellular message to a phone or a command platform. No video, no stream, no bandwidth bill.
The enclosure
Why a nest box
The shape is not decoration. A sensor worth protecting is also worth finding, and a box on a tree that looks like equipment invites exactly that. A nest box does not.
It also solves practical problems at the same time: the pitched roof carries the solar panel at a useful angle and sheds water, the volume is enough for a battery sized for months rather than days, and mounting it is a job one person does with a strap and a ladder.
Inside
Five things, none of them exotic
The engineering is in the power budget and in the signal processing, not in the parts list.
Scroll the diagram sideways →
Design targets
What the first build is aimed at
Nest is pre-prototype. Everything below is what it is being designed against, not what has been measured on a range.
| Detection method | Passive RF — the sensing path receives only and never transmits |
|---|---|
| Design target range | ≈ 1 km against a common commercial drone |
| Alert latency | Seconds from detection to phone, cellular coverage permitting |
| Alert channel | LTE; a short message to a phone or a command platform |
| Power | Battery with solar top-up |
| Autonomy target | 90+ days unattended, including a Baltic winter |
| Mounting | Tree, pole or building facade — no mains power, no groundworks |
| Enclosure | Weatherproof, shaped as a nest box |
| Expansion | Acoustic and further sensor modules planned on the same node |
| Components | Non-Chinese, European sourcing preferred |
Roadmap
Where it goes from here
RF detection
A single node that reliably separates a drone control link from background noise and raises an alert. This is what the first prototype has to prove.
Acoustic module
A second sensor for drones flying without an active radio link, cross-checked against the RF channel to keep false alarms down.
Networked nodes
Several nodes reporting into one picture, so a line of sensors gives direction and a rough track instead of a single point.
Command integration
Feeding alerts into the platforms operators already use, rather than asking them to watch another screen.
Tell us what Nest has to survive
Range, winter, mounting height, how the alert should reach you — operator requirements are what decide the first build. If you have a perimeter to watch, we want to hear about it.