Mistery box

[galileo]

Does anyone recognize this board? It is claimed to be an SDR from a drone but it looks like a development
board for a router to me.
What I deduced so far: looks like it has 2 receivers with 4 ports each an Ethernet port, lots of unused SMA ports.
TNC like connections give WIFI vibes.
Any ideas?

[daqq]

Would have to be some very weird router - the circular connector hints at serious use. The way that the capacitors and connectors are held in place is something that you don't do for the fun of it, but rather when you really need it due to vibrations. It could be something drone-ish hacked together from borderline off the shelf parts?

More photos would be more useful, such as what is the chip in the middle? FPGA or ASIC?

[AndyBeez]

From the solder mask color and component density, the top board looks similar to a Cisco made PoE business access point. Take a look under the top board for any identifying brand names or serial numbers.

What's underneath? I'm guessing, but those boards might be RF amplifiers.

The whole unit looks a prototype though, so don't expect a user manual anywhere. Maybe it is the base station for a drone system? Or it fell off a phone mast.

[ebastler]

That picture is from the New York Times article which reported that Iranian weapons are supposedly made with Western parts, right? Why don't you say so?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/us/drones-russia-iran.html
Behind a paywall unfortunately.

[AndyBeez]

Well then... as a possible drone launch control system, the Russian war criminals attacking the civilian's of Ukraine with Iranian drones, might just want their Roubles Dollars Bitcoin payments back for parts they could have otherwise sourced from a dumpster in Minsk.

[james_s]

That looks like a serious bit of hardware, and quite expensive. It certainly is not consumer equipment.

[galileo]

Would have to be some very weird router - the circular connector hints at serious use. The way that the capacitors and connectors are held in place is something that you don't do for the fun of it, but rather when you really need it due to vibrations. It could be something drone-ish hacked together from borderline off the shelf parts?

More photos would be more useful, such as what is the chip in the middle? FPGA or ASIC?

That is the only image that I have. It's from some military report.

[galileo]

From the solder mask color and component density, the top board looks similar to a Cisco made PoE business access point. Take a look under the top board for any identifying brand names or serial numbers.

What's underneath? I'm guessing, but those boards might be RF amplifiers.

The whole unit looks a prototype though, so don't expect a user manual anywhere. Maybe it is the base station for a drone system? Or it fell off a phone mast.

I only have this image. It does look like something from a telco mast but too hackish to be commercial.

[galileo]

That picture is from the New York Times article which reported that Iranian weapons are supposedly made with Western parts, right? Why don't you say so?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/us/drones-russia-iran.html
Behind a paywall unfortunately.

I tried reverse image search but at that time nothing was available. The image is from some military report.

[galileo]

Well then... as a possible drone launch control system, the Russian war criminals attacking the civilian's of Ukraine with Iranian drones, might just want their Roubles Dollars Bitcoin payments back for parts they could have otherwise sourced from a dumpster in Minsk.

I'm Serbian living in Serbia and have nothing to do with with that war. Keep you politics and CNN talking points out of this discussion.

[ebastler]

That picture is from the New York Times article which reported that Iranian weapons are supposedly made with Western parts, right? Why don't you say so?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/us/drones-russia-iran.html
Behind a paywall unfortunately.

I tried reverse image search but at that time nothing was available. The image is from some military report.

So you say you did not get the image from the NYT article, but from "some miltary report"? Would you mind giving us the source (link) for that one?

[Halcyon]

That looks like a serious bit of hardware, and quite expensive. It certainly is not consumer equipment.

I dunno, I looks a bit thrown together to me. Like the ethernet jack shoved at an angle and glued into place.

[sleemanj]

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572

(report is linked from the NY Times article)

Direct lnk to the full-size image:
https://cdn.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572/resources/Q641ce0j0pakS6Ii_Y2vc.jpeg

[galileo]

So you say you did not get the image from the NYT article, but from "some miltary report"? Would you mind giving us the source (link) for that one?

Nothing relevant for the topic there but sure: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572

[galileo]

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572

(report is linked from the NY Times article)

Direct lnk to the full-size image:
https://cdn.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572/resources/Q641ce0j0pakS6Ii_Y2vc.jpeg

Much higher resolution on this one. Thanks

[galileo]

With higher resolution image the micro is tm4c129 the big chip in the middle remind me of AMD CPUs but those
usually had a triangle marker and labels.
Can't make out the markings on 2 Analog Devices chips, but those have 2 channels with separate RX/TX so that narrows it down.
I wonder why did they need all those current measuring ceramic resistors for.
Still think that is some kind of dev board, quality of the components suggest that is not the usual hacked up stuff from China.

[PA0PBZ]

2 more full-sized:

https://cdn.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572/resources/-lc68JnkqUDiRCRnVdHnh.jpeg

https://cdn.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/7a394153c87947d8a602c3927609f572/resources/nTuytlbzVpmNALVqgC7eq.jpeg

[daqq]

With higher resolution image the micro is tm4c129 the big chip in the middle remind me of AMD CPUs but those

Pretty sure it's an FPGA - this sort of thing is the perfect use case for them. It seems that the lid has fallen off of it. As to the transceiver ICs, it'll be something like these:

https://www.analog.com/en/products/ad9363.html?tab=documentation-pane-1#product-documentation

If you look at the pinout, the area where the Rx/Tx go in and out roughly correspond to the board shown.

[AndyBeez]

Thanks for the Hires images. At close inspection and on a larger screen, the blue PCB is an industrial embedded PC with a 'radio control' feature set. The unoccupied pads suggest customer configuration by the OEM - who ever that is? One empty jumper looks like an SMT LVDS connector. The big TFT hole set might be for a ribbon connector in an PLCC application. To me, the processor suggests a BGA mobile Celeron or a dual core Atom, but the associated resistors suggest another type of AMD device. Any processor trainspotters here? See attached.

The red board top left might be the GPS/Accelerometer unit. I suggest the coax marked with a yellow-T could be the aerial. The blue boards under the long red board might be TX/RX signal mixers or preamps. The red board is a custom PSU strip for the blue boards. Plenty of LED status inidcators all over the board.

Lots of industry standard white blobs placed on the tallest parts. Cable connectors have been glued in. Note the white blobs deliberately placed over the inductors(?) on the RF lines. Someone must have noted 'adverse vibration' in testing.

Together, this is quite an interesting concept as it shows just what can be made from off the shelf - or out of the dumpster - parts. Thirty year's ago, a 'guidance' system would have employed hundreds of design and development engineers who created a bespoke system costing millions of dollars. One that would require constant updating and servicing. Today, a kid with a RPi and a robotics kit from AliExpress might be just as effective. Speculating, this processor board may have even come from something as mundane as a ticket machine (or that's what it said on the export license).

[The Soulman]

The 74p connector footprint looks like it belongs to a connector similair to this:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alibaba.com%2Fproduct-detail%2FJ30JZ-series-low-mating-unmating-force_60671338822.html&psig=AOvVaw2zfXUXq7Atj1nefQmtyXHl&ust=1671200672464000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCOjlouXp-_sCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAL
Because the mounting holes don't line up it isn't a exact match.
Haven't seen one of those in person, maybe some else has and have a clue of a common use of this connector?


The circular connector on the outside of the housing appears to be a standard 19pin veam 22-14 commonly -but not exclusively- used on western military equipment.

[galileo]

With higher resolution image the micro is tm4c129 the big chip in the middle remind me of AMD CPUs but those

Pretty sure it's an FPGA - this sort of thing is the perfect use case for them. It seems that the lid has fallen off of it. As to the transceiver ICs, it'll be something like these:

https://www.analog.com/en/products/ad9363.html?tab=documentation-pane-1#product-documentation

If you look at the pinout, the area where the Rx/Tx go in and out roughly correspond to the board shown.

You might the right on both counts, the FPGA on ADRV9361-Z7035 looks fairly similar
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/analog-devices-inc/ADRV9361-Z7035/7324240

[james_s]

That looks like a serious bit of hardware, and quite expensive. It certainly is not consumer equipment.

I dunno, I looks a bit thrown together to me. Like the ethernet jack shoved at an angle and glued into place.

You mean the SMA jack? The ethernet jack looks straight and installed properly on the PCB. The whole device has the look of a prototype but that big PCB in the middle looks like some kind of expensive evaluation board.