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China's Police Will Shoot Illegal Drones With Radio-Jamming Rifles (mashable.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the rifles-vs-radio-waves dept.

"Police in China are being equipped with new high-tech weaponry to help them fight back against illegal drone use," writes new submitter drunkdrone. Mashable reports: A Chinese city's police department is arming itself with more than 20 drone-jamming rifles...which work by emitting radio signals that force the drones to land, purportedly without damaging them. The drone-killing rifles will be used during the upcoming 2017 Wuhan Marathon, to raise security. Wuhan police demonstrated the drone-killing rifles last week, where they shot down six drones, according to the Chutian Metropolitan Daily.
Each rifle costs $36,265, and has a range of 0.6 miles.

62 comments

  1. Not if the NRA has any balls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where Chuck Heston when Trump needs him!?

    Bullets, not radio!

    1. Re:Not if the NRA has any balls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      he dead

    2. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only real long-term solution is to install flak guns and/or CIWS systems around sensitive places like the white house,

    3. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      That might work in select locations; but CIWS isn't cheap(Phalanx is north of $5 million a pop; albeit probably more because of the support electronics than the gun alone); and ammunition isn't inexpensive and is a nontrivial danger to everyone in the area; and both factors are going to limit the number of places you can get away with deploying it.

    4. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

      the drones will be made in the usa and sold to china.

    5. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by peragrin · · Score: 1

      Ah but a ciws with a couple of these baby's and some modified programming could be awesome

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    6. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by peragrin · · Score: 1

      A continuation of that thought these jam radio could it block GPS too? They might be useful in real ciws systems as a second shootdown or at least turn off course.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    7. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) If I were to do something silly, malicious or not, I would ensure the drone has a preprogrammed flight patch and target. It's not an ICBM, but it sure as hell can drop a 1KG brick, or bag of dog poo on an idiots head.
      2) I would not waste the money on a drone, only to have it seized by law enforcement. Seriously, what kind of numbskull buys an off-the-shelf drone and flies it into places that will get them in trouble. If you're going to do that, you make sure it uses inertial tracking if the radios are knocked out.

      The only prank I could come with anyway would be dropping things on government office buildings that attract annoying birds like Canada Geese, Pigeons, Seagulls and Crows.

    8. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It's considered tacky to talk about 'blocking' GPS; but if you look for 'GPS signal generators' or 'GPS simulators', you can get hardware that doesn't merely interfere with GPS; but can produce a fairly convincing GPS fix for a time/location/etc. that you specify. Tricky and subtle to fool a suitably nice GPS system that is actively paranoid about the possibility; a couple of antennas on the ground just doesn't look quite like a satellite constellation; but can fool more naive GPS systems quite effectively.

      It is suspected that this is the technique behind a few surveillance drones that were led off course and (mostly) soft-landed in hostile areas(I think the most recent case was a US drone that got a little too close to the Iranians). Really shoddy firmware might get fatally confused if you suddenly present it with some wild fantasy data; but if you start feeding accurate GPS signals, and gradually skew them, error can quickly and quietly accumulate much faster than a naive target might suggest.

      I imagine that the power of blocking or spoofing GPS depends mostly on how many backup instruments you have; and how paranoid you are. GPS is preferred because it provides very well-behaved data from a chip that costs peanuts; but it's not as though everyone just stumbled around and got lost before it was available. A drone built right down to budget and weight might not have anything to fall back on; but compasses, terrain-following, inertial navigation, even celestial navigation if it isn't too sunny are all options.

    9. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOCK ON JAM, that'll fix those rifles

    10. Re: Not if the NRA has any balls! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      A drone built right down to budget and weight might not have anything to fall back on; but compasses, terrain-following, inertial navigation, even celestial navigation if it isn't too sunny are all options.

      Inertial navigation should be enough. The problem then is processing time. A drone with an Arduino or even a stm32 is spending most of its time running the flight control code.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. don't worry, Alibaba will have them for sale by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    but you have to wait four weeks for shipment

  3. because drones without.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    radio control always land safely and without damage.

    where "safely" means "unable to transmit footage of potentially horrific things that make government look bad".

    and "without damage" means "more evidence to gather to aid in rounding up the pilot".

    1. Re:because drones without.. by magarity · · Score: 1

      radio control always land safely and without damage.

      where "safely" means "unable to transmit footage of potentially horrific things that make government look bad".

      and "without damage" means "more evidence to gather to aid in rounding up the pilot".

      Look at it this way: "safely" does not mean properly shielded so the police operator doesn't have a gigantically increased chance of getting brain cancer.

  4. Easy to defeat... by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    Each rifle costs $36,265, and has a range of 0.6 miles.

    Bold mine.

    Here's how:

    Incorporate software in the drones to keep them at 0.7miles and above, while still doing what they need to do.

    How about that?

    1. Re: Easy to defeat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As if the police have no roof access.
      I'm pretty sure if you run from Chinese police there will be no protest when they shoot you in the back. If their fancy radio rifle fails they'll go back to good old gunpowder.

    2. Re:Easy to defeat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then they'll shoot them from a very tall building, or a helicopter.

      You're a special kind of idiot, aren't you?

    3. Re:Easy to defeat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that how you solve problems? Off the cuff with no thought whatsoever? If I was your boss I'd fire you for this post alone.

    4. Re:Easy to defeat... by rmdingler · · Score: 1
      Or, like some missiles:

      The killer drones could be pre-programmed to attack a given target, with some on-board flight adjustment options, and radio contact is unnecessary to guide them.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    5. Re:Easy to defeat... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, there is no reason to even go through that effort.

      It's highly likely these "guns" only work on a subset of drones. Probably only DJI drones/radios (which is Futaba FASST) and possibly Spektrum radios.

      I seriously doubt it will stop a MultiWii or any other open-source drone using a nonstandard R/C protocol and/or autonomous flight.

    6. Re:Easy to defeat... by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      Incorporate software in the drones to keep them at 0.7miles and above, while still doing what they need to do.

      To put this in perspective, that's just over 1km high, which is over twice the height of the Empire State Building, and comfortably above the 830m height of the world's current tallest building, the Burj Kalifa.

      Even if you've got a drone that has that sort of range- which is going to be at the upper limit or beyond most consumer drones at present anyway- you're not going to get close enough to view anything of note in worthwhile detail in the vast majority of situations.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  5. Regular rifles do this too by Bizzeh · · Score: 1

    Regular rifles can permanently jam a radio signal to a drone too... If you hit it right... (in the receiver...)

    --
    portfolio
    1. Re:Regular rifles do this too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Regular rifles can permanently jam a radio signal to a drone too... If you hit it right... (in the receiver...)

      Or, just shoot the operator. I sure China would never do that, given the great respect that they have for human rights.

    2. Re:Regular rifles do this too by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      You're idea is also a lot cheaper! $1500 for a GOOD rifle. And a buck or 2 for the round to disable the drone for re-purposing(sell on ebay to get some of the investment back)

  6. Drone killing? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

    ...which work by emitting radio signals that force the drones to land, purportedly without damaging them. The drone-killing rifles

    This doesn't sound like what most people would consider "drone killing". But I guess that makes a better headline than drone disabling.

  7. I wonder if this would help in Mosul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ISIS is using hobby drones to deliver small bombs. They scare the opposition.

  8. drones will fallback to onboard sensors... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the Predator army drone learn that the hard way....

  9. Eagles... by matbury6017 · · Score: 1

    ...would be cheaper, have a longer range, and require less direction. Apparently, eagles naturally hate drones and will seek them out and take them down. They're pretty effective too: https://www.youtube.com/result...

    1. Re:Eagles... by InfiniteZero · · Score: 1

      Apparently tigers work better:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    2. Re:Eagles... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Funny, I liked the "ill-eagle drones" :D

      Reminds me at a /. post a few weeks ago where a mining company was complaining about eagles killing their $10k camera drones. They even where so stupid to "camouflage" their drones as eagles ... facepalm.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  10. Sounds expensive. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    China's Police Will Shoot Illegal Drones With Radio-Jamming Rifles

    Wouldn't it be cheaper to shoot the drones using radio-jamming rifles?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Sounds expensive. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      So focused ionising radiation, so drone rifles or cancer guns. I hear the CIA had the idea first, not to shoot down drones, though.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Sounds expensive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seems it would be cheaper to shoot them down with a shotgun. A quality US made shotgun can be had for less than $500.

  11. Useful. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can use them to jam radios and cameras in protester crowds too, to make sure those embarrassing videos don't reach the internet.

    1. Re:Useful. by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      You can use them to jam radios and cameras in protester crowds too, to make sure those embarrassing videos don't reach the internet instantaneously.

      FTFY

      As long as there is local storage of video, you will never be able to suppress embarrassing videos.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    2. Re:Useful. by blind+biker · · Score: 2

      Good point, but the Chinese are actually rather resourceful and will surely realise that they can cover their camera or phone in aluminium foil with apertures for the objective and the focus finder, to protect against such EM jamming. This will make instant upload impossible, of course, but will enable uninterrupted recording.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    3. Re:Useful. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      How do you remote control a drone that is covered in aluminium foil?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re: Useful. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You program it's flight so no remote control required.

    5. Re:Useful. by silanea · · Score: 1

      With some variation of this, perhaps?

      --
      Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
  12. Good news everyone! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This should improve the odds that cheapo Chinese drones start to feature more robust IMU/gyro/etc. based fallbacks for dealing with excessive RF noise!

    In all seriousness, jamming a drone obviously makes life harder, since it excludes all 'basically just an RC airplane' hardware; prevents the operator from getting footage or issuing new commands, and so on; but it's hardly some rule of the universe that 'just make a docile attempt at landing' is the inevitable response to hitting a nasty RF spike. A variety of options, from heuristics of various sophistication for backing out and trying to escape the jamming; to attempts to fly straight toward where the emissions are most intense and ruin the jammer's day; to just dead-reckoning via onboard sensors and a backup flight path, all exist.

    And that doesn't include the drones that actually have some nontrivial machine vision capabilities, or sensors other than cameras that can be used for navigation, though such tend to be rather more expensive.

    1. Re:Good news everyone! by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In all seriousness, jamming a drone obviously makes life harder, since it excludes all 'basically just an RC airplane' hardware;

      It doesn't. Fixed-wing drones exist, and are literally nothing but a normal plane with the addition of an Arduino (or similar) and a IMU board. I've got one right here. It's simple enough to have the drone fly a pattern or return to home on failsafe. Even Multiwii can land your fixed-wing drone if you've got it programmed correctly, and have a decent altimeter and a sonar on it. I haven't installed the sonar yet, though I have it.

      t's hardly some rule of the universe that 'just make a docile attempt at landing' is the inevitable response to hitting a nasty RF spike.

      If they are clever they are hijacking the control protocol and giving it slight down on all channels. That should make it spiral slowly to the ground. DSM/DSM2 has been broken wide open and the information made public, and the same attack with minor variations will work on most of the control protocols because they are not well-protected. They jump predictably between a couple of different frequencies. You'd also want to jam GPS. Just nailing it with HERF might or might not do any good; if it has a sensible failsafe it won't down the drone if all it does is interfere with radio communications. And if someone starts using HERF then drones will simply begin to be shielded. It may be nontrivial, but it only has to be figured out once and then everyone else can copy it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  13. Patriot Missiles are very good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From what I heat Patriot Missiles are very good at shooting down drones as well.

  14. $36,265 vs $250 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Proof again that a good offense trumps any defense.

  15. They are just protecting themselves by davidwr · · Score: 1

    The Chinese already have human overlords, they don't need robotic ones.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  16. Noise by markdavis · · Score: 2

    But can the jamming rifles be used on boom-box cars? THAT would be nice...

    1. Re:Noise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think they're herf guns. I think they're just jamming control. It does say, "without damaging them".

      If that's the case, these wouldn't be very effective against any drone that doesn't *need* control signals, and not-at-all against a car stereo.

    2. Re:Noise by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 1

      But can the jamming rifles be used on boom-box cars?

      A regular rifle is good enough for that. If the car is loud enough, no one will hear the shots.

  17. Will it force "Return to Launch" ?? by WimBo · · Score: 1

    I'm interested in knowing what the rifles actually do.

    If it's jamming the control frequency, then the drone may simply report loss of controller communication and automatically return to where it's home position was recorded.

    OTOH, if it causes the drone to fall out of the sky, then the drone could cause other unforeseen problems.

    Either way an RF emitting rifle is much more cost effective than a patriot missile.

  18. Shotguns! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More effective and cheaper!

    Haha

    1. Re:Shotguns! by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      More effective and cheaper!

      Only within the limited effective altitude range of the shotgun. Effective horizontal range of a 12GA is around 200 yards maximum. Vertical (or near-vertical) range would be much less. A drone at 700 feet altitude should be safe from most regular shotguns, I would think. A large-bore goose gun could do better, but they still have limitations. Shotgun pellets lose velocity quickly when fired in the normal near-horizontal plane, fighting gravity on top of that...well...better hope the drone is trying for a relatively close-in video/photo-op.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    2. Re:Shotguns! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Firing shotguns into the air in cities - what could possibly go wrong?
      The way to spot a gun nut is that they know fuckall about guns, even less about gun safety and accept that traitor Oliver North in the NRA as their leader.
      Not every gun user is a gun nut. Maybe consider becoming one of those instead of the foaming at the mouth political types.

    3. Re:Shotguns! by BlueStrat · · Score: 0

      Firing shotguns into the air in cities - what could possibly go wrong?

      Such a marvelous strawman! And, you built it all by yourself with nothing at all in the OP's post nor my own discussing appropriate-use scenarios on which to base your assumptions! Bravo! [golf clap]

      The way to spot a gun nut...

      In your world they must be jumping out from behind every rock and tree. What color is the sky there? Is hoplophobia as common there as you make it appear?

      Maybe consider becoming one of those instead of the foaming at the mouth political types.

      Hooboy! You can cut the irony here with a knife! That is, if a knife doesn't also trigger one of your various phobias/fixations/fetishes as well!

      You are a silly, silly person!

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    4. Re: Shotguns! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We shoot guns in the air on New Years, mostly shotgun. Worst thing a shotgun shell that isn't a slug is going to do is rain down a few pellets. They go up, loose momentum, and then come back down. They don't hurt at all. No different than being hit by very tiny hail storm pieces. Keep your drink covered.

    5. Re:Shotguns! by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      Not to insert check his posting history, world class loser.

  19. China will shoot..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China Will Shot Cell Phones At Political Protests with Radio Jammers

    Fixed the title for you. Expect these to disable cell phone transmission at police shootings in the US within a year. This will help prevent accidental recording of events like this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVaU8qm2LhQ

  20. Inferior communist technology by aliquis · · Score: 1

    For just 80 times the cost, A US Ally Shot Down a $200 Drone With a $3 Million Patriot Missile, superior US military technology can shoot it down at up to 160 times the distance! Wikipedia: MIM-104 Patriot.

    Superior Patriot technology let you protect against drones in a 80 524 times as large area at a cost effectiveness at 100:1 considering the low extra cost at 80x the price of this anti-drone rifle!

  21. Seems a bit pricey. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alternatively, a .22 rifle will work to about the same range and will kill the drone permanently. Tag: $600, including a decent 12x56 scope.

  22. Posting history not strawman by dbIII · · Score: 2

    Posting history not strawman BlueStrat.
    Not your first idiotic gun post, not even the twentieth.
    I think I'd learned more about gun safety by the time I was seven than the shit you spout.

  23. Not all that effective by Oceanplexian · · Score: 1

    What if said drone navigates via an INS and gyros, and isn't controlled from the ground but via a pre-programmed flight plan? It sounds like this defense, while probably effective against your average DJI Phantom bought at Walmart, will do nothing to deter someone motivated enough to use a drone as a weapon. Hell, it probably won't even work against drones that don't rely on GPS and are controlled on something other than 2.4Ghz.

    1. Re: Not all that effective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah this won't do anything against my IR drone. But IR means I need to see it so they could just shoot me with a regular gun.

  24. Meanwhile in 'Merica... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shotgun shells are cheaper and anything above and below your property is yours. Sorry city dwellers.

  25. I suspect this is aims at DJI etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If this interrupts GPS most quads would just get lost and crash. If it interrupts the control link, most will just fall from the sky.

    Yes a DJI will auto land for for the other 98% they just come crashing down.