Delta is a

situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness, often abbreviated as SA is the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes with respect to time or other factors. It is also defined as the perception of the elements in the envi ...

and

battlefield management system A battlefield management system (BMS) is a system meant to integrate information acquisition and processing to enhance command and control of a military unit through multiple other C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligenc ...

developed by the Ukrainian military services for use in the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

, especially following the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. The system gathers and integrates information from diverse participants, including reconnaissance units, civilian officials, foreign intelligence partners, and vetted bystanders. Sources include commercial and military drones, sensor networks, satellite imagery, and intelligence from partner countries. Geolocated data is mapped in real time, along with pictures of enemy assets. Delta covers a wide range of battlefield management tasks, including the planning of operations and combat missions, coordination between units, and secure exchange of information about the location of enemy forces. On the backend side, it's a cloud native environment. On the client side, it runs on regular PCs, laptop, tablets or mobile phones. Involved in the development and supervision of the system are the Center for Innovation and Development of Defense Technologies of the

Ministry of Defense of Ukraine The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine () is the ministry of defence, ministry of the Government of Ukraine, Ukrainian government that oversees national defence and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The head of the ministry is the List of Ministers of De ...

, the NGO

Aerorozvidka Aerorozvidka (, "aerial reconnaissance") is a team and NGO that promotes creating and implementing netcentric and robotic military capabilities for the security and defense forces of Ukraine. Aerorozvidka specialises in aerial reconnaissance an ...

and

Mykhailo Fedorov Mykhailo Albertovych Fedorov (, ; born 21 January 1991) is a Ukrainian politician, and businessman. He served as a Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Digital Transformation from 2019 to March 2023.Ministry of Digital Transformation Ministry of Digital Transformation may refer to: * Ministry of Digital Transformation (Spain) The Ministry for the Digital Transformation and of the Civil Service is a ministerial department of the Government of Spain. It is responsible for pro ...

. The system became broadly operational in August 2022. The software was developed in coordination with

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. The system was first tested in 2017, as part of a NATO initiative "to wean troops off Russian standards of siloing information among ground units instead of sharing it". Ukraine surprised NATO in quickly making this system even more accessible to troops than "more modern militaries". Delta, in its prototype phase, was first "pressed to its limits" during the Ukrainian counteroffensive to the Russian Kyiv convoy. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry credits Delta for helping identify 1500 confirmed, Russian targets daily during this time period. In December 2022, Delta was the target of an adversarial

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

endeavor. On 4 February 2023, the Ukrainian government gave approval to full deployment of the Delta system to the

Armed Forces of Ukraine The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are the Military, military forces of Ukraine. All military and security forces, including the Armed Forces, are under the command of the president of Ukraine and subject to oversight by a permanent Verkhovna Rad ...

and permitted hosting of Delta's cloud-components outside of Ukraine to protect it against missile and cyber attacks.

Centrality of drone warfare

Aerorozvidka specializes

aerial reconnaissance Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or Strategy, strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including Artillery observer, artillery spott ...

and

drone warfare Drone warfare is a form of warfare using military drones or military robots. The robots may be remote controlled or have varying levels of autonomy during their mission. Types of robots include unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weapon ...

and their main contribution to Delta likely lies in this sphere. Delta, in this view, serves as a key link between raw reconnaissance (often remote photographic

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', 'far off', an ...

), identification, prioritization, and attack, facilitating a more rapid response cycle across diverse and dispersed participants and resources, known in military parlance as the

kill chain Kill Chain may refer to: * Kill chain, a military concept about structured attacks, and later cyber attacks * "Kill Chain", an episode of the television series ''NCIS'' * ''Kill Chain'' (film), a 2019 film starring Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim ...

. Systems such as Delta are poised to become a key information-management component of the rapid evolution of drone warfare on the modern battlefield. Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation, would like to see 10,000 drones operating continuously along the front lines. This vision entails a substantial network of digital coordination. For reasons of ongoing

operations security Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine whether friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to th ...

, the precise nature of the integration between Delta and drone warfare remains undisclosed.

References

{{Authority control Military of Ukraine Information technology in Ukraine 2016 establishments in Ukraine Ukrainian responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Centrality of drone warfare

See also

References