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Drones Vs. Drones

plowe

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(Robotic falconry via Wired.Com)

 

The rise of Quadcopters and Drones has been a pretty quick one. You only have to look back to Christmas and see the numerous gadget shops that offered all sorts of cheap, off of the shelf remote controlled quadcopters to see that the technology has captured the imaginations of thousands of people around the world.

 

But what happens when that technology then needs to be kept in check? What happens, if that technology is being used for evil instead of good? (Insert your own version of 'with great power comes great responsibility' anecdote here). Well, it appears that the answer is to fight fire with fire...or more accurately Drones with Drones. Mechanical engineers from Michigan Tech University have developed an anti-drone drone that has abilities Spiderman himself would be proud of.

 

The weapon of choice is a giant net that not only fires at the offending drone, but remains attached for the attacking drone to drag its prey off to pretty much where ever it chooses. Mo Rastgaar, associate professor of mechanical engineering, said "It's like robotic falconry. What makes this unique is that the net is attached to our catcher, so you can retrieve the rogue drone or drop it in a designated, secure area."

 

Effective from up to 40 feet away, the drone catching net brings its target down upon impact and the idea of being able to carry it off means any intel that the drone has collected (as long as it's stored locally) is reclaimed and, in worse case scenarios, if the Drone is armed with explosives it can be brought down in a designated safe zone to reduce casualties and/or damage to surrounding buildings.

 

It's not the first attempt at using drones to police other drones,  in August Boeing unleashed their ground to air laser drone defense system which pretty much does what it says on the tin- spots a drone, fires laser, drone is dead...scary stuff. Others seem to be turning to more tech related methods to stop unwanted attention from the sky in the form of geo-fencing systems which prohibit a drone from flying in places by using GPS.

 

With rumors that the UK may be under threat from drones carrying explosives (Disclaimer: not sure just how true that is or how big a risk it is- please don't panic and buy anything to shoot down drones) it appears that this rise in anti-drone tech could be the start of an influx of tech based defenses to protect people from miniature aerial threats...

 

However, seeing as bears and even an eagle has been reported to have taken drones out then maybe a more natural solution could be considered- everyone is familiar with the resident Eagle at the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament which is employed to keep pigeons off of the courts; could we soon see homes and estates employing birds of prey to ward off drones?

 

Cue an epic battle in the skies that will ring throughout the ages: Drones Vs. Eagles...think I'll stay indoors for that one.

 

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  • in reply to Former Member

    Catching things in the air with a giant net?

     

    Like this you mean?

     

    (Warning, contains bad language)

     

    Begs the question, what happens to the person living underneath the drone that's been entangled. And whose liable for any damage? The drone owner? Or the person that wrapped the drone in a net?

  • in reply to shabaz

    One of the airfields I used to hang around to do skydiving at had an RC plane and drone club on site. There the rule was "if there are parachutes in the sky, drones and RC planes should be on the ground". A sensible arrangement that gave drones a totally clear piece of sky (almost no planes bust a dropzone due to the inherent dangers of hitting a person in freefall, or worse, catching a piece of parachute cord) and plenty of warning of when to bring them back in. Five years of skydiving at that site, and there was only one incident in those five years, and that was on a day when the weather really wasn't jump friendly but people went anyway.

     

    Responsible users aren't the issue tho - the issue is one of what is done about the irresponsible users, and the really big issue with it is the anonymity. The airprox reports I linked earlier all have the phrase "Drone operator could not be traced", and no amount of regulation will work if that regulation isn't enforceable.

     

    And , I'm not 100% sure of the regulations here, but there is definitely a threshold in property law in the UK where ground becomes sky. From memory, I think it's 250' above your property that is "your" sky, and above that it's "public" sky (but I could be wrong). There are notable exceptions to this, for example, if you live within a 2nm radius of an airport, then the sky belongs to the airport.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Yeah the GPS isn't that useful except where integrated into some telematics system and really FPV(First Person Video/Vision) and then you can really go mad I saw one going round Yorkshire on a 40 mile round trip which is really clever but mad as it went past some RAF bases etc.

     

    Re 500 ft if I took a pic of your house or you or your trees from 500 ft they would look flat and boring so from a practical point of view why do it  which was my point.

    Obviously there are folk who need to take the "Big Picture" but they are legitimate(probably paid to survey or some such)  and really not a problem as they would be following the rules and or exceptions. If there was a building that looked really cool at many hundreds/thousands of feet then I would be more woried about crashing my plane in to the big building than some piddly drone

  • in reply to shabaz

    That's correct according to UK Law Shabaz!

  • in reply to Dudley

    With "Drones" which weight much less than a wild goose they are a much smaller problem for aviation than the press makes us believe. Rotors of rescue helicopters can chop small trees easily, there is no reason the can not scrap 2 kg of plastic into small pieces. Larger "Drones" are quite rare and expensive.

    If everybody would stick to the rules in place and uses common sense there would not be even the annoyance we are seeing today, but we are NOT having a security problem.

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  • in reply to Dudley

    With "Drones" which weight much less than a wild goose they are a much smaller problem for aviation than the press makes us believe. Rotors of rescue helicopters can chop small trees easily, there is no reason the can not scrap 2 kg of plastic into small pieces. Larger "Drones" are quite rare and expensive.

    If everybody would stick to the rules in place and uses common sense there would not be even the annoyance we are seeing today, but we are NOT having a security problem.

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