What's the current state of anti-drone technology?

Factual Questions
1

Today’s San Jose Mercury had a good article about anti-drone technology, but it was pretty nebulous as to particulars.

What’s the Dope? How advanced is the technology of of zapping drones? And how will this affect their military use?

2

Sorry to jump in here already … Usually we like to wait until the Question has been answered …

However …

I’m looking at the FAA’s rules on “Unmanned Aircraft Systems” (or drones) and it seems pretty clear property lines are ignored for UAS operations … these anti-drone technologies may well be completely illegal. Sports Stadiums, Airport, Emergency Operations are specifically stated as “no fly zones” … but otherwise if the drone is below 400’ AGL a property owner isn’t allowed to stop the drone … anymore than an aircraft above 500’ AGL.

Start shooting at Cessnas and you’ll be going to jail …

3

This is one of the solutions coming out of the UK:

4

That sounds like a serious breach of the FCC rules that do not allow radio jamming.

5

So the question is “What’s the current state of shooting down aircraft”, more or less?

6

These are passive measures right? SInce a drone is many times easier to shoot down than a manned aircraft.

7

You don’t have to shoot it down, you capture it (see above) - albeit at low level so far.

I don’t think drone developers are too preoccupied with FCC rules … they’re into other markets.

8

In the U.S, attempting to shoot down a drone is a felony and could result in 20 years in prison. Even threatening verbally to shoot one down could result in a five year prison term.

These laws have not been enforced so far but FAA says there is legally no difference between a small hobbyist drone, a large cinematography drone, a hot air balloon, or a 747.

The FAA probably has several concerns:

  • Interfering with an unmanned aircraft could result in it crashing and causing damage or injury to those below

  • The unmanned aircraft might be in licensed commercial service, for legitimate emergency response or law enforcement purposes

  • The risk of people getting confused and accidentally shooting at a low-flying manned aircraft such as an ultralight

  • The FAA has exclusive authority over airspace, which they define as from the ground up to space. Otherwise a manned police or news helicopter slowly moving at 400 ft would be subject to the whims of each property owner’s borders as it flew.

People often cannot distinguish between different classes of drones – the superficially often look similar. If you shoot down, jam or interfere with a $500 hobbyist drone there’s a good chance (barring FAA prosecution) you might get away with it.

However a $30,000 cinema drone carrying a $10,000 camera may look similar, or even a $250,000 high-end cinema drone. If one of those is shot down, jammed or forced to crash (a) It could easily kill someone below, and (b) The owners, their insurers and legal firm will probably come after you.

http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/why_shooting_down_drones_is_a_federal_crime

9

What about drones in restricted space, or interfering with crewed aircraft? Do law enforcement agencies have the authority to shoot those down?

10

You want the dudes who aim at a harmless autistic man and instead hit his caregiver to fire weapons into the sky at a moving target ?

11

Why would law enforcement be shooting down a crewed aircraft?

12

The most common hobbyist-type drones cannot even fly in restricted airspace – they are “geofenced” by the drone firmware. Exceptions to this can be legitimately acquired but uninformed people on the ground have no way of determining this, and certainly not within the brief period the drone might be in sight.

By “law enforcement” if you mean local law enforcement, they generally have no training, equipment or reliable means of determining whether a drone is licensed, unlicensed, hobbyist, commercial or what its exact position is in 3D airspace relative to surrounding property, people and structures.

E.g, it could look like a hobbyist drone suspiciously hovering near an airport, when in fact it’s a licensed cinema drone flown by an FAA-certificated pilot shooting b-roll material for a movie. Imagine if local law enforcement tried to jam it or shoot at it, which caused it to go out of control, veer toward the airport and get sucked into the engine of an airliner. Or what if it was a 15-pound drone carrying a 5-pound camera and they caused it to crash through the windshield of a car passing below?

Regarding authority, they could report it to the FAA. However I don’t think local law enforcement is generally empowered to unilaterally enforce what they deem FAA regulatory violations, any more than they could give a speeding ticket to an airplane they thought was flying too fast or shoot at a low-flying hot air balloon that was scaring a farmer’s cows.

If by “law enforcement” if you mean the U.S. government they can shoot down a fully-loaded 747 if deemed a sufficient threat.

13

As mentioned the companies developing anti-drone systems for ‘peacetime’ use are focusing mainly on jamming or spoofing the control link. However there are some other non-shoot down approaches being developed like another unmanned a/c with a net to pluck a smaller one out of the air.

The jamming approaches have regulatory issues in the US, but some such systems have already been purchased to defend installations overseas.

Also however there are parallel efforts to counter unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with weapons. The difference between that and any other anti-aircraft system is the case of drones that are too cheap to effectively counter with normal aa weapons.

For example MML is a US Army system which will initially use ground launched air-to-air missiles to counter UAS’s among other threats. Future development aims to add smaller weapons to the system that would be economical against smaller UAS’s and/or artillery and mortar shells.

14

I thought this was a GQ thread. I was asking if it was legal, I wasn’t advocating any specific course of action.

15

Absolutely not … not anymore than LE can shoot down a wayward Cessna 152 that crosses into the approach to a major airport … air traffic controllers will divert the 747.

16

You are correct; sorry about that.

17

There is an interesting drone video of a suburban house fire on YT, it was part of one of those “Win/Fail 2015” compendiums so I couldn’t provide a link. The unit was at a fairly good altitude, one of the firemen knocked it down with a healthy dose of firehose.

here it is:- YouTube

18

I’ve looked further on youtube, and found this device, which just disables or hijacks a drone. It sounds like what was used on the drone described in the news article in my original post’s link.

Ha! And this solution looks like a lot of fun. More satisfying than just landing the offending drone.

19

That device looks like a safer way to stop an obviously hostile drone. The idea is instead of knocking it out of control, it cuts off its navigational and control signals which (hopefully) forces it to revert to contingency algorithm of “land immediately” or “return to launch point”.

However it is currently illegal (even for police) to interfere with operation of an aircraft in flight, which includes all drones. It is a felony, regardless of the method used.

Besides the FAA, another problem is that Batelle device is also illegal from an FCC standpoint. The FCC bans all non-military jamming devices: Jammer Enforcement | Federal Communications Commission

The Batelle device (according to the manufacturer) not only interferes with drone control signals but also disrupts GPS navigational signals. If it is in fact jamming GPS that is extremely dangerous and could interfere with manned aircraft safety.