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'DroneGun' Can Take Down Aircraft From Over 1.2 Miles Away (thenextweb.com)
The more drones being sold around the world increases the likelihood of them being used as part of a criminal act. For example, ISIS has been using drones in Iraq to carry and drop explosives. In an effort to protect consumers, an Australian and U.S. company called DroneShield has announced a product called the DroneGun. The DroneGun "allows for a controlled management of drone payload, such as explosives, with no damage to common drone models or the surrounding environment," the maker says on its website, "due to the drones generally responding via a vertical controlled landing on the spot, or returning back to the starting point (assisting to track the operator)." The Next Web reports: DroneGun, a handheld anti-drone device, has a range of 1.2 miles. It also looks like an unlockable item in a first-person shooter. The "gun" uses a jammer to disable electronic communication across the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz frequencies. Blocking these frequencies cuts off communication between the drone and pilot (or GPS) and forces it to land safely or return to its operator -- which assists in tracking the offending party. At 13 pounds, it's a bit cumbersome, but still capable of being operated by one person. It's also mostly a point-and-shoot device and doesn't require specialized training to use. DroneGun isn't approved for use in the United States -- thanks, FCC. If approved the device could provide a useful tool for taking down drones at airports, over crowded spaces, and in war zones.
Dude, I'm not flying the bomb to your house while holding the transmitter, I'm turning on the auto pilot, letting it sit there for an hour, then take off and bomb you while I'm 2 states away. Oh, and I'm doing this on software thats a couple years old (ArduPilot from a few years ago) so ...
This is useful for taking down your DJI phantom ... but as far as taking down a weaponized toy? Yea, no, you're going to need to hit inertial management and GPS based on what I can build for a hundred bucks. Give me 200 and I'll start doing optical guidance.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
From TFS and TFA you get told
has a range of 1.2 miles
But if you go to companies website Drone Gun you see
Allows for an up to 2km coverage
So why is TFS and TFA lying about that extra 69.8 metres? What are they trying to hide?
And yes I spelt metres the way it was intended to be spelt.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
https://www.droneshield.com/dr...
How long till the Narco-traffickers and coyotes start deploying these to take down the DHS drones patrolling the borders? No I didn't RTS or RTA, so don't flame me too much.
Only I can judge you.
"DroneGun isn't approved for use in the United States" It's not approved in Australia either. Nor will it be, as it interferes with other uses of those bands.
At those frequencies I could also use it to kill someone's WiFi. And, possibly, do it from a mile away.
Who ordered that?
No shit. It's hardly a finely tuned weapon - this is a damn cudgel that jams regular wifi frequencies over a massive distance. Expect this to cause disruption even when used responsibly. Moreover, depending on how broad the 5.8GHz disruption is, it could affect 802.11p, which is a vehicle safety protocol.
Damn right the FCC hasn't approved it.
Blocking these frequencies cuts off communication between the drone and pilot (or GPS) and forces it to land safely or return to its operator -
ISIS Drone 2.0 now contains differential antennas and will, when losing all communication, follow the source of the jamming signal.
Are they seriously just banking on how some drones operate for this product to work? Disabling the "Land or return to owner" is a software change away.
I have a hard time believing the FCC understood the function/porpose of this device. I assume it's covered in Part 15 of the rules which state in part "Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) this device may not cause harmful interference...".
It would seem this device would violate these rules during normal operation.
... changes the way drones react to jamming. Then, they'll just fall and explode. 1.2 miles off target is negligible...
I bet it would disable cellphones filming a peaceful demonstration a mile away too.. No chance of abuse from this..
Splitting hairs but.....
I've always understood that a "drone" is an autonomous something. Jamming its C&C signal means at best you cut the visual link to home-base and the ability to assume control. It can still carry out its mission, because to qualify as a "drone" you are an autonomous thing carrying out a pre-programmed mission, or responding in real time to external conditions.
Has this changed over the past few years?
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Note to self. Use 900MHz band for Drone control. Of course, if the whole drone is up to something nefarious, maybe I could use an illegal transmitter. The way things are I could probably get more jail time for that than for flying a deadly payload.
Nullius in verba
You're Welcome.
Sincerely,
The FCC
On an associated subject, I think a solution to the majority of drone problems in the U.S. could be banning consumer-grade drones from having cameras. You'd only be able to fly them line-of-sight, limiting range, and you couldn't use them to invade people's privacy or commit most crimes. You'd still be able to play with your drone though. Win-win.
Birdshot at 40 yards should do the trick. Plinking a drone with ball ammo from a rifle probably wouldn't take it down.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
How will robots be regulated when they can easily be programmed to commit illegal acts? What if a drone could break into houses and rob them? Who will be allowed to use that technology and run those programs?
I mean - yes it look like a fun gun - Is that just a typo? (F and G are beside each other on the keyboard) https://www.droneshield.com/dr...
The flying ones and their soon-to-be land-based rolling, crawling, or even walking equivalent will render the second amendment irrelevant. Enjoy your right to hand-held weapons while you can. That or you start a campaign for the right to build robots.
Yes, drones are aircraft, but not all aircraft are drones. This story (and the summary) is specifically focused on jamming drone communications. The Slashdot title however uses the word aircraft instead of drone, which would initially lead something into thinking this was something that could be used to take down passenger aircraft.
Even if it can cause some radio interference to an airliner (not sure if it can or if it would even matter, just speculating), the very specific use of the word "Aircraft" rather than "Drones" in the title is not an accident. Slashdot, you're supposed to be better than that. I thought your new owners were going to be trying to improve its reputation. That, along with other crappy stories and a fixation on a lot of non-geek news as well, is kinda looking a lot like the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Why wouldn't terrorists use 72Mhz radios you can get for free from people willing to give them away. Why waste expensive electronics on a drone that's just going to blow up anyway?
Assuming they don't go the high-tech autopilot route. If a drone can "return home", it can also "home in on target" with relatively minor software changes.
Kind of funny when it's a bomb...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is a similar technique that brought the US down a while back, on different frequencies (jaming GPS, ~1.5ghz).
Unfortunately, this does not work when the drone does not require such information (be it GPS or remote signal). Newer drones, both military and consumer grade use vision sensors and can even recognize preloaded maps by looking at the ground.
Now, maybe ISIS does not yet have easy access to this tech (though anyone in the silicon valley does, or any decently good engineer really), and read-to-fly consumer drones such as the phantom 4 (1000usd+-) already has vision sensor for flight, avoidance and tracking (but not mapping and path detection - yet.. though you can jailbreak them, its running android - and add your code)
If you think about it though, vision is just another set of frequency and there are ways to jam them that are still efficient. I'm guessing in the future there will be a combination of "anti drone" guns:
1) radar detect and destroy (missile, gatlin gun, high powered laser, all these work and high powered laser might be best). Today's radars recognize them no problem when they get in range to "drop a bomb". They would have to be as fast as missiles or faster to be a threat, even with stealth technology (though none has stealth). This is however expensive.
2) Low power laser. a 1w laser pointed at the camera sensor will damage the sensor, rendering it inoperable fairly quickly.
3) high power light beam. Same but does not damage the sensor. this includes high power IR beam for night operations.
and of course: nets, shotguns, etc. or a combination of GPS, remote control jamming + other things.
ps: theres a better, reliable way to achieve all this, its called a mortar. Cheap, accurate, and only a very expensive system can destroy the payload in flight (ie solution 1), and its not even 100% reliable. Or you know, just suicidal humans (which they have used several times now.... I bet its cheaper and easier for them than buying a phantom4 anyway).
Anyhow, an interesting topic, and I do hope it doesn't come to any of this.
Those systems are fine and dandy, until the next generation of drones will be introduced which will be using inertial navigation systems.
Inertial navigation system is basically fast spinning ball - gyroscope, just like the ones that were used in V2.
Not that spinning gyroscope is immune - existence of gravitational waves have been proved, but anti-gravitational weapons are still in their infancy I suppose.
So it's a radio jammer. This is a very basic countermeasure that would only stop hobbyists. Any good hardware engineer could build a quadcopter or airplane drone that could reach a target several miles away within a few meters of accuracy using inertial guidance and vision. The software required is available as open source freeware. The only way to stop a well designed weaponized AUV is to physically damage it.
is brought to you by your instinctual dislike of our robot overlords.
and i will be flying my drones in triangle formation each with aluminum tin foil shielding with a sensor array to detect such attack. And the onboard drone command tranceiver and powerpack will be replaced with a 3g android camera phone with wifi ip link to assist nearby drones in the swarm to triangulate the enemy combatant toting his DroneGun to spray with horny femaleblackbear cuntjuice Paintball and sexting his picture to a nearby DOD representative. bring it on bitches.
Get one of these guns and go around taking out all wifi within a mile jamming all the frequencies. Sounds GREAT!
I did some time in Iraq with an EOD group. They made big booms. I work around controlled dets all day, even now. Big booms also, though not as big as the ones the EOD guys made in abandoned dwellings. Anyway, i'd rather have the det be 40 yards away than right near me, thanks. Also, a drone can't carry all that much metal aloft, so the shrapnel possibilities are low. More worried about shrapnel than the actual explosive.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
So all that needs to be done is set the return-to-base on the suicide drone to the required destination. Please add GPS jamming support.
Today : 'DroneGun' Can Take Down Aircraft From Over 1.2 Miles Away
Tomorrow : Drone Can Take Down 'DroneGun' From Over 10 Miles Away
aaaaaaa
Oh, that's nothing compared to what the US has been using drones for in Iraq.
Propaganda: When you start mentioning the big boogeyman to make an argument against an everyday thing. For example, mentioning that commies drink Vodka when arguing for prohibition.
The summary says "DroneGun isn't approved for use in the United States -- thanks, FCC" which I take as sarcasm, but wouldn't mis-use of this gun create havoc with my wireless network?
Birdshot at 40 yards should do the trick.
It would also have the advantage of not taking out every WiFi in 1.2 miles.
I would suggests an actual thanks to the FCC versus the snark. Keeping GPS working near airports is a good idea. I realize that Australia has a different view of what is good as their copyright shenanigans can attest to. Also disrupting 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz systems near airports (and many other places) isn't actually a good idea either. Given the range of 1.2 miles one suspects that using the 'drone gun' for various lulz would be just one web order away. Or one slightly less than attentive operator. We have lots of them spread throughout the various police depts in the South, both East and West.
You have to have line of sight to hit the thing. A drone on a programmed attack path is going to fly N.O.E. and you won't see it until it's far too late.
"due to the drones generally responding via a vertical controlled landing on the spot, or returning back to the starting point (assisting to track the operator)."
How do you know the bad guys won't reprogram their drones to continue the mission even if jammed; E.g. Continue on last known heading, or Upon loss of comms, immediately drop payload/self-destruct?
There are ready-made systems based on many frequencies as diverse as like 433Mhz, 868Mhz, 915Mhz, 1.2GHz and more besides the 2.4-5.8Ghz range this device attacks. Also, if I am dropping a bomb, I'll just program an autopilot to do that independently from external command, thing that can be easily done with many kinds of cheap controllers so, if you are delivering the payload with a DJI Phantom for instance, yeah, should work but that's it. IMHO they should try to disable/jam the GPS but even that would not be enough if the attacker knows how to implement dead reckoning. Won't have the same precision but in this case it won't matter much I guess.
Scientia est Potentia
What kind of wattage is this outputting? I would be scared to be walking in front this gun because it will cook me like a microwave oven.
Finally - a use for all of that "Star Wars" missile defense technology developed back in the 1980's !!!!
Of course - they never were able to get short an actual missile out of the sky, it kinda had to follow a predicable path, but still all that can be dusted off and made ready again.
I think that program (SDI) was estimated to cost a few trillion USD$. How many drone killers will it take to pay that off?
If you think radio jamming should be legal, your issue isn't with the FCC, it's with US law, specifically 47 U.S.C. 333. Complain to Congress.
Despite that these and other jammers would have some beneficial uses, in my opinion it's a very good thing that radio jamming is illegal (with some exceptions for law enforcement and national security). Legalizing radio jamming in any form would cause far more problems than it would solve.
Have to wonder if a focused microwave emitter like that could also fry a home router if directed horizontally... or, heat up your sandwich?
Perfectly Normal Industries
And these drones today are all thank to our fake commander in chief! Because I don't remember DRONES being used as terrorism nor anything else until now!