
Dutch Firm Trains Eagles to Take Down Drones - breck
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/world/europe/drones-eagles.html
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gene-h
Now we just need to develop UAS's with eagle countermeasures. Lucky for us
there is a compound that behaves like capsaicin does in humans but with birds.
Methyl anthranilate[0], the chemical responsible for grape flavor in koolaid,
bubble gum, and other food products, causes temporary painful sensations in
avians. Oh and it is mostly harmless to avians and humans, it's a food product
for crying out loud.

Sadly it does not appear that food products contain high concentrations of
methyl anthranilate, but methyl anthranilate can be purchased in large
quantities as a bird repellant.

So all we need to do to protect our UAS's is mount a MA fogger on them. So
here's the neat thing, UAS's are nice sources of turbulent flow, a fact which
the Yamaha Rmax helicopter exploits to better coat plants with pesticide[1].
This means if we inject MA fog into our UAS's prop wash we can attain optimal
MA application on attacking avians.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_anthranilate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_anthranilate)
[1] [http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/](http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/)

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kinkora
I think you need to define "mostly harmless". I will imagine that if a bird
gets sprayed those chemicals mid-air, it will either drop to the ground or
start flying erratically and collide into something mid-air which can cause
death[1].

[1] I've seen a bird hit the side of my stationary car out of nowhere and it
died on the spot.

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robhu
Similarly these birds are attacking drones midair which may cause them to
spiral to the ground and be destroyed. It seems like fair game to build anti-
bird defences in to your drone given that birds are being trained to attack
them. Perhaps it will make these people think twice.

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sdoering
> "to spiral to the ground and be destroyed"

That article stated, that these birds are able to bring the drone to the
ground safely.

> "It seems like fair game to build anti-bird defences..."

[irony on] Yeah totally. [irony off]

Because it is your right to fly your drone everywhere? To potentially endanger
others?

Let's say imagine these trained birds attacking your drone after it moving
into the flight path of a landing aircraft. Or above a crowd at a festival, or
above your neighbors garden.

What if it fails and drops? What if it crashes into something (plane) or
someone (human)?

If someone would endanger me or my beloved ones (be it in a plane, at a
festival or in my garden) by flying these things irresponsibly - believe me a
drone would not be the only thing broken if I could get to them.

If these birds are there to protect others from people using these things for
malicious reasons or in a way that is just dumb (read idiots), I would hope
that the owners of these things additionally get fined a horrendously high
amount. And have to pay for the deployment of these countermeasure birds.

Make the learning experience a painful one for them I would say.

> Perhaps it will make these people think twice.

I am with you on this one. OK; I think of the drone operators as "these
people" but isn't this the same?

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pj_mukh
There is so much glee and coverage around all this anti-drone tech. There's
about 2Million of these drones out there [1]. Talking about spike strips and
auto-blockades when there were just 2 Million cars out there in the early
1900's would've surely been considered counter-productive? And all the drone
sightings seems so hyperbolic, and that's when they weren't "maybe plastic
bags" [2]. Click-baiting is afoot methinks.

[1] [http://dronelife.com/2015/04/16/drone-sales-numbers-
nobody-k...](http://dronelife.com/2015/04/16/drone-sales-numbers-nobody-knows-
so-we-venture-a-guess/)

[2] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/drone-believed-
to...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/drone-believed-to-have-hit-
british-airways-flight-may-have-been/)

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fallinghawks
As someone who works closely with birds of prey, I really wish this idea would
go away. To me it's really not about whether or not it's dangerous to the
raptor. It is, sure. But it is incredibly easy for a drone to evade a raptor
by going straight up. No bird can climb that fast, not even a peregrine
falcon, which is the fastest raptor _going down_. Any drone operator who's got
half an eye on his/her drone will see that eagle coming and just get the heck
out of there.

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spatulan
Are most drone operators experts on bird of prey escape tactics?

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duggan
Well, if the information is known, then it can be shared.

The point being that once it is well known (which it will be if it's in any
way successful initially), then it will simply be added to the drone operator
handbook, and become less useful as an enforcement tactic.

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ChuckMcM
I'm trying to figure out if I can build a device which will give a crow or
raven a treat if it deposits a piece from a drone in the box. My biologist
daughter was explaining that I need some way to have this action take place
spontaneously so that future training can reinforce it, so perhaps first
training them to put things in the box, then working on getting them to
specialize in drone parts.

~~~
etendue
If you get the bird clicker trained you're more than half way there, and birds
generally take to clicker training very quickly. Those particular birds have
an affinity for shiny things, so painting the parts silver or wrapping them
with foil might be one way to prompt the behavior for reinforcement.

edit: for the other half, depositing the parts where you'd like, look up
"targeting". I'd train the birds to a colored sticker, then place the sticker
on your deposit box gizmo.

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pingec
But isn't there a big chance of the eagle getting hurt by the blades?

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slimsag
From the article:

> Worries have been raised that birds could be struck and seriously injured by
> a drone’s blades. Mr. Hoogendoorn said that the safety of the animals was a
> top priority, and that although eagles’ talons had scales to protect them,
> work was underway to give them more covering. Mr. Wiebes said safety
> measures could include some form of glovelike sheath for the talons.

~~~
leonroy
Absolute lunacy - a bird will be seriously injured by this at some point.

Even the cheapest decent drone (Parrot AR Drone) can cause skin lacerations
with its flimsy plastic blades. I shudder to think what some of DJI's carbon
fibre blades and significantly more powerful motors do to flesh and bone.

Why don't they simply use drones to take down drones? It surely would be
cheaper than training an eagle!

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sintaxi
You are vastly underestimating the strength and durability of an eagle. Eagles
are birds of prey. They can fuck up wolves and goats both of which have
significant characteristics to deal out damage themselves. I would guess an
Eagle could take down any consumer level drone without any issue what-so-ever.
Military drones are another matter completely.

Eagles manufacture themselves and training them to take something out of the
sky is probably not much more difficult than training a dog to play fetch.

~~~
Shivetya
Long term he is correct though. Drone makers will just about figure out how to
circumvent birds one way or another, either from changes in selectivity,
sounds, or even as someone suggested - chemical counters.

Drones set to hunt drones are a no brainer. The military will certainly have
them so it won't be long before the police do. Even a ground based solution
might work against any non hardened drone - just fry its electronics. You can
pretty much limit the range of such an effect and I can imagine scenarios
where all drones are just dropped from the sky.

~~~
RealityVoid
Except drone makers have no reason to do this. I've seen the hype with these
anti-drone-falcons, but there is still not one case where thy actually caught
a drone in the wild.

Even if it were, drone builders do not want to be associated with rule-
breaking drones. They are fine with falcons removing drones around, let's
say... an airport. And so am I. so no reason to employ such anti-measures.

But from the get-go, the antidrone falcons are such an idiotic idea I can't
even begin to take is seriously. The falcon would be killed by the drone. I
say that as someone who injured himself with a drone (an average one, even) so
I know firsthand how serious the damage can be. It barely can find a place to
catch the drone with the models the used in the demo video. If someone flied
an octocopter, the only place it can hook onto it is right from below, on the
landing gear, and I find that unlikely. This would kill the bird for sure.

I find the very existence of anti-drone tech ridiculous. The who hysteria
around this is right out of the middle ages witch-hunt.

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aaron695
What if satanic cultists played rock and roll from a drone and corrupted our
youth?

Yes..... if a drone actually was a security risk you want an animal to deal
with it?

OK, in prisons you could use it to minimise security issues, ie 'reduce' the
drugs getting in.

But otherwise wtf? Take that terrorists we have a Eagle, that will probably
stop you.

Idiots. Terrorists will be doing some interesting stuff in this area at some
point. They are not yet.

But they are already winning, people are scared and no one has even done
anything. Easiest job in the world.

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jon_richards
Wouldn't it be easier to just put a butterfly net on another drone?

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intrasight
Truth is stranger than (science) fiction

