Airbus Rolls Out Anti-Drone System (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: The Airbus anti-drone system employs infrared cameras, radar technology and sensors to spot and track drones over six miles away, the company says. If the incoming drone is considered suspicious, the system can use electronic signals to jam the drone's communications and more: “Based on an extensive threat library and real-time analysis of control signals, a jammer interrupts the link between drone and pilot and/or its navigation. Furthermore, the direction finder tracks the position of the pilot who subsequently can be dealt with by law enforcement. Due to the Smart Responsive Jamming Technology developed by Airbus Defence and Space, the jamming signals are blocking only the relevant frequencies used to operate the drone while other frequencies in the vicinity remain operational. Since the jamming technology contains versatile receiving and transmitting capabilities, more sophisticated measures like remote control classification and GPS spoofing can be utilized as well. This allows effective and specific jamming and, therefore, a takeover of the UAV,” the company stated.

Comments

Great news

[Anonymous Coward]

Great news, about time there was a counter to this DANGEROUS and IRRESPONSIBLE activity by untrained unlicensed immature toy users.

Can they now fire lasers back at the laser pointer crowd?

That a better answer than stopping sales

[Ravaldy]

Protecting an area that should be drone free is a better answer than any rules, regulations or bans they can come up with. Whether this truly is as effective as they claim is a whole other matter.

Re:That a better answer than stopping sales

[plover]

Even The Fine Summary said they'd selectively jam the drone's communication, not the GPS signals. That means if they detect a 2.4GHz signal in the direction of the radar signature of the drone, they'll jam 2.4GHz. To avoid interfering with legitimate radio traffic I suspect their system discriminates, and only identifies transmissions in bands assigned to RC control or transmissions on the unlicensed bands. It probably wouldn't jam cell frequencies or other licensed bands.

And that will be good enough to stop virtually all of the model aircraft being flown into prison yards today. Their problems today are not caused by sophisticated electrical engineers who illegally mod their radios to transmit on illicit frequencies. Their problems are coming from the buddies of inmates who go to the mall, buy a cheap RC quadcopter, duct-tape a cell phone and a few packets of powdered substances to it, and send it over the wall during the exercise period. If they can stop the hundreds of those guys today, they can worry about the EE types later after they become a real threat.

There's perfect, and then there's good enough to be effective now. This falls into the latter category.

Re:April fool's day?

[bugnuts]

Jamming any RF signal is a federal crime, but no they aren't controlled over wifi. But that doesn't matter because intentionally jamming any RF signal is a federal crime.

TFA discussed uses around prisons. That makes sense, and if remote enough, can probably get an exception to jam a signal.

GPS spoofing (also illegal), can interfere with many other issues, most of them life-threatening.

Re:What could go wrong?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Against idiots and casual would-be malefactors who don't know what the hell they are doing, I assume that(while dubiously FCC approved in any case, and likely to interest Uncle Sam if it involves too much GPS-monkeying) jamming the drone's control link would work reasonably well.

Against someone who is expecting to be jammed, I'd assume that the drone's default behavior would be 'fly toward the strongest RF source if you lose connection with manual control' and the jammer would be a nice handy beacon.to head right into as fast as possible.

Re:April fool's day?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This may change if enough cheapie drones filled with assorted narcotic goodies keep making it over the fence; but my understanding is that team FCC has been surprisingly effective, even in the face of 'zOMG Security!' and 'Tough on Crime!' in holding the line on jammers. Contraband cellphones have proven tricky to keep out of prisons(not yet normally delivered by drones; but any facility moving around that much food, garbage, laundry, visitors, etc. is necessarily porous); and penal authorities would love to be able to just jam them, rather than painstakingly try to frisk the population over and over to try to stay ahead. So far, the answer has been No.

Re:What could go wrong?

[He Who Has No Name]

Or, you know, set up an internal navigation system that is either based on image recognition using preloaded images compared to a downwards-facing camera, or onboard inertial / laser ring gyros.

Lose contact with the encrypted command and control source? Switch to internal nav or mission profile and continue with Plan B.

The jamming paradigm is built on the assumption that drones have to be phoning home to something. A drone that isn't interested in talking to the outside world can only be jammed with projectiles or a really big butterfly net.

Re:What could go wrong?

[DanielRavenNest]

You guys are overthinking the problem. If you want to shoot down an airliner, build an air cannon, set it up under the approach path to an airport, and lob explosives or ball bearings into the plane's path. The pumpkin throwing contests reached almost a mile with an 8 lb projectile, which is plenty of range. Smart ECM is of no use if you are throwing a dumb projectile.