- Volcanic minerals can allow ordinary drones to evade advanced radar detection systems
- Spray-on stealth coatings could eliminate expensive composite panels from military drone production
- Radar networks become less effective when drones return with dramatically weaker electronic signatures
A small Turkish defense research firm claims it developed a spray-applied radar-absorbing coating capable of reducing drone visibility to modern detection systems.
The project, led by Turkish researcher Yunus İnce, centers around a material called Kürşat 3.0, developed over a seven-year engineering effort.
According to technical details, the coating is applied directly to the aircraft’s surfaces, rather than relying on expensive composite panels or complex structural changes.
Volcanic materials could change how low-cost drones avoid radar detection
Kürşat 3.0 uses basalt and pumice, both volcanic rocks, as its core ingredients rather than exotic synthetic compounds.
Recent tests reportedly produced an attenuation of 43.2 decibels (dB), a dramatic reduction in the strength of a radar signal reflected to the receiver.
In practical terms, this means that the radar echo from the coated drone is approximately 20,000 to 40,000 times weaker than from an uncoated object of the same size and shape.
An attenuation figure of 43.2 decibels would place this material in a truly competitive range if independently verified.
Academic literature typically reports effective broadband radar absorption in the range of 20 to 30 decibels under standardized conditions.
Pushing significantly beyond this threshold while maintaining the simplicity of a spray application would represent a meaningful advance over commercially available products.
At 43.2dB, a drone that should be visible for several kilometers with a strong, traceable return signature would either disappear completely from the radar screen or only appear at such a close distance that the defending system has virtually no time to react.
In military terms, this shrinks the detection and engagement envelope from a comfortable buffer zone to a frantic last-second warning.
Radar stealth conventionally requires either carefully shaped airframes or expensive composite panels glued together by specialists.
This material works differently by exploiting the microscopic pore structures found in basalt and pumice.
These natural cavities trap incoming electromagnetic waves and convert them into heat instead of reflecting energy back at the radar receiver.
The underlying scientific principle has attracted academic attention for over a decade, making the approach plausible rather than fanciful.
A sprayable formula eliminates the seams and cover holes that plague traditional composite panel installations on complex curved surfaces.
Why do we need very low detection drones?
The war in Ukraine has shown that drones costing a few thousand dollars can destroy armored vehicles and disrupt supply lines on a large scale.
Defenders have responded by expanding radar networks and electronic warfare systems specifically designed to find and kill these drones.
Reducing a drone’s radar signature complicates every step of this detection chain, and doing so with a coating that adds negligible weight would make stealth accessible to operators using commercial hardware.
Turkey’s defense industry has already proven with the Bayraktar TB2 that affordable unmanned systems can reshape battlefields before Western analysts fully understand the shift.
However, at the time of writing, there is no independent testing that has confirmed this technology, and the relevant radar frequency bands for operational use remain unspecified.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and a single attenuation figure from unpublished tests does not yet meet that standard.
The volcanic materials themselves are cheap and abundant, which is scientifically reasonable.
But laboratory measurements rarely survive translation into real-world field conditions with vibration, weather, and radar frequency variations.
Until independent verification emerges across operationally relevant bands, Kürşat 3.0 remains an exciting research result rather than a military breakthrough.
Via Defense blog
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds.
