
France’s military is training eagles to attack drones - petethomas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/21/terrorists-are-building-drones-france-is-destroying-them-with-eagles/
======
Vexs
This is a copy-paste from what I posted on reddit in regards to the same kind
of thing.

Really this entire concept is stupid. Not only are higher-end quadcopters
unimaginably acrobatic, to the point where a skilled pilot could easily outfly
a bird, but these things are literally flying lawnmowers. Go on /r/Multicopter
or any other multirotor forum, there are loads of people that have been sliced
all over their arms, and if you dig further, cuts down to the bone in some
cases. Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones, well. (maybe
eagle/falcon legs are different tho?) Seriously, if I was a falconer I would
never consent to this. As for people suggesting they use cords or something to
tangle the props up, that's really not an impossible problem either, people
have been putting mesh cages over their props to fly them safely indoors for
some time now, plus if you only stop one prop the quad becomes extremely
violent in it's movements, pitching and rolling all over the damn place, which
again, will probably at the very least hurt the bird quite a lot. Plus, if you
were using quads for nefarious purposes, if that bird catches your quad you're
not gonna give up and call it a day, more likely you'll push the throttle to
max, which again, will cause that bird quite a lot of harm. If I were the
aforementioned falconer, I would make sure the pilot cut the motors
immediately before the eagle caught it, as that's the only way this would ever
be safe for anyone involved.

~~~
Terr_
I think a more fundamental problem is cost: Building one more explosive-drone
is probably cheaper than raising and training one more bird, so an attacker
would just send N+1 drones against N birds, and whichever drones detect
interference can explode into shrapnel.

> Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones

Maybe they could make them little reinforced booties of kevlar and steel-
sheathed talons? :P

Over in the realm of sci-fi, its interesting to contemplate bird-safe EMP
grenades, or a neural-tap that makes the birds part of a spotter/targeting
system for ground-based lasers.

~~~
mc32
They could also just use one of these[1] jamming devices to take down the
drone.

[1][http://newatlas.com/battelles-dronedefender-beam-gun-
uavs/39...](http://newatlas.com/battelles-dronedefender-beam-gun-uavs/39885/)

~~~
techdragon
Then they just use what the military call an "anti radiation" method of target
homing.

A crude suicidal drone with programming to 'avoid obstacles' \+ 'head to the
source of the jamming signal' \+ 'blow up as near to the target as possible'.

Side note: "Anti Radiation Drone" sounds like some sort of scifi awesome sauce
if you ask me.

~~~
ovi256
The military already uses anti-radiation missiles with home-on-jam
capabilities extensively.

Here's the US model, which will carry a 66kg HE warhead to 150 km:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM)

------
rodionos
Reuters photo for a visual effect of an intercept:
[http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/photos-of-the-
week?artic...](http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/photos-of-the-
week?articleId=USRTSZ06O)

------
wapz
>four eggs "were placed before birth on top of drones while still inside the
eggshell and, after hatching, kept them there during their early feeding
period

Why did they put the eggs on drones? Wouldn't that make the eagles think they
are parents or related.

------
mc32
Why not use autonomous drone swarms to attack enemy drones (any that does not
respond with correct security certificate, for example) rather than a very
costly solution, which while interesting and clever and lo tech, isn't viable
in warfare scenarios.

~~~
usrusr
Likely because falconers want funding just as much as drone builders.

But there might be more: having a heavy hunter-seeker drone over a crowd would
be nearly as bad as having the occasional rogue drone there. Birds, with their
amazingly low mechanical failure rate might be the preferable way of keeping
reasonable people reasonable. Sensitive parts of the sky need to be kept clear
of non-malicious, but nonetheless rogue drones not only because of accident
risk, but also to get a clear threat indication from the malicious ones.
"Probably just some kid who ran out of things to film with their gopro" is not
very helpful when assessing the relative risks of a violent takedown over a
crowd.

~~~
falcolas
Based on the existing drone combat leagues - a lightweight drone with lots of
streamers would do better than a heavyweight drone with any form of weaponry.

Foul the props, and the drone will go down.

Of course, I've also watched an expensive camera octocopter tip itself over
and dive bomb the dirt because of a nearby antenna overpowering their delicate
GPS.

------
ill0gicity
Consider for moment why the French are training eagles to take down drones:
bombs. Now think about how the eagles are dealing with the drones... They
knock them out of the sky. I can't be the only one seeing a problem with this.

"Use the 'interference gun'". If that works, and it's a BIG "if", the drone
will either land or fall to the ground. Bombs away! Seriously, it's just as
bad as an eagle crashing into it. Real gun? Same problem with the added bonus
of a bullet going through the drone and continuing on its journey to who-
knows-where.

So what's a government to do? The only solution I can see that removes the
threat of a bomb going off is this: a much larger drone (650mm and above
octocopter) armed with a net gun. The key here is to have the net tethered to
the drone so it can carry the hostile drone away to a safe area. The drone-
mounted net gun already exists (Excipio), just have to get the net tethered to
the drone.

~~~
seandhi
Bombs have an arming mechanism that triggers some time after they're released.
They won't automatically explode just because they hit the ground.

~~~
XorNot
A free falling drone bomb might. But more importantly: this isn't military
grade munitions. This is home made acetone peroxide and the like I.e. highly
unstable

------
danboarder
This approach is not all that new, but it's a clicky headline so it keeps
coming back as news organizations cover it again and again. I remember seeing
this over a year ago, and before that was well (in 2015 as I recall). A quick
search shows a lot of coverage last year of Dutch police doing the same thing:
[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/eagle-vs-
drone](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/eagle-vs-drone)

~~~
Signez
They talk about that in the article.

> A solution presented itself in an experiment by Dutch police, who last year
> used a trained eagle to pluck a DJI Phantom drone out of the air, Peter
> Holley reported for The Washington Post.

------
redtuesday
Why not use drones to catch drones? The japanese, or more specifically, the
tokyo police is doing that. Is that not really viable?

~~~
arikrak
That sounds a lot more realistic but it's not as cool and romantic as eagles
swooping in.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgCNVdYzIcw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgCNVdYzIcw)

------
owenversteeg
This is incredibly stupid. As I've posted elsewhere here, drones have a chance
to outfly and outmaneuver the golden eagles used in the program. Then,
assuming the eagles catch up, they still have to deal with blades - with
wingtips spinning at hundreds of miles per hour. There's no way they can
survive the blades: every bird I've seen that encounters a UAV either was
instantly killed or permanently disabled. I've worked with drones enough to
know what will and won't stop them. A bird won't: it'll brush the blades and
fall to the ground in a bloody mess. A bullet will. Bullets are tried and true
technology, we know how to use them, they're not ridiculously expensive, and
they will certainly take down any drone of reasonable size.

This is PR, plain and simple. There's no other explanation for it, unless
France's air force is hilariously incompetent, which I would doubt.

~~~
spiderfarmer
"The military is designing mittens of leather and Kevlar, an anti-blast
material, to protect their talons"

Also, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-
ebmE1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s)

Maybe it won't work for all drones, but bullets would drop drones into the
crowds below, so the idea catching them in the air is not that stupid. It's
just one of the ideas the police is exploring.

~~~
owenversteeg
If a bird catches a UAV, it's not going to be able to carry it off either.
Golden eagles in particular cannot carry very much. You can find videos of
them using their impressive wingspan to momentarily generate enough lift to
carry dogs or goats, but that is only momentary. As you can see here [0],
golden eagles can't even carry 1kg for more than a brief amount of time.

And you've got to be kidding me. "Mittens of leather and Kevlar"? How about
you put on some leather-kevlar gloves and then try to touch a spinning blade,
with the tips going hundreds of miles per hour. It would be like a heavy
caliber bullet against a bulletproof vest.

This is PR, plain and simple. It's completely and totally ridiculous and
wouldn't work unless the 'terrorists' were completely incompetent and flying
tiny drones. (I'll remind you that a tiny drone can't carry much payload,
which would probably be the purpose of a terrorist attack.)

Somewhere, entirely separate from the people working on this PR project,
someone in the French military is hopefully looking at realistic ways to take
down drones safely, e.x. bullets. But I can only hope that this isn't a
serious effort and is only PR, otherwise I'd be extremely worried.

[0] [https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-
bald...](https://raptorresource.blogspot.nl/2015/11/how-much-can-bald-eagle-
carry.html)

------
msl09
I think the reason that the French are investing in this solution is because
other cheaper (or more effective) interceptor drone technology is still not
ready to be used.

To think that the French army is not also investing on hunter drones is to
severely underestimate the intelligence of that army.

------
lend000
Magnets? EMP's? Is that still considered too sci-fi?

------
popol12
What a scalable solution.

~~~
bnegreve
It is not meant to scale, it's a way to take down drones without shooting in
crowded areas.

~~~
ekianjo
having high precision rifles with assisted aiming systems is surely way more
effective.

~~~
bnegreve
Shooting guns in a crowded environment may cause panic.

~~~
lostlogin
May?

------
sir-alien
Got to wonder the damage that will happen to the bird. The larger drones which
these tests are for would do some serious damage to the birds legs if the
pilot kept the motors turning. If the pilot is intent on breaking away, they
would not care about the birds well being.

Some of these drones also put out a fair amount of thrust so even if the drone
is upside-down it could quite easily pull down the bird.

Somehow I feel that this training of large birds to catch drones just has not
been thought through. Would a net cannon not but more successful especially
when using high tensile netting. For mobility, attach net cannon to police
multi rotor.

~~~
falcolas
A multirotor carrying a heavy payload is not going to have a lot of thrust to
spare to apply to the bird. The rotors only typically run in one direction as
well, so it couldn't suddenly apply counter thrust.

Most multirotor autopilots also would behave in a very expected fashion when
disturbed, making them pretty predictable.

------
dmix
Iron Beam is an already commercialized laser system, an alternative to Iron
Dome missile defense against rockets and UAVs:

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Iron_Beam](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Iron_Beam)

This sounds much better than eagles. One issue with eagles is that they have
to be taken care of, fed, and deployed when needed.

This is like the old mechanization vs cavalry debate. Machines have many more
benefits than just how they function at a specific task (ie, they dont get
tired).

------
squarefoot
Not going to work well, save for small drones capable of ridiculous payloads;
a big one with more powerful engines and stronger props would seriously damage
or kill the bird. To me the best way to neutralize a drone is by shooting it
with a thin but strong steel net from another smaller and faster one: instant
stop + faraday cage effect that probably also severs its connection with the
launch base instantly.

------
upofadown
The article doesn't actually mention any examples of drones used by
terrorists. The closest they get is a purely military action somewhere in
Iraq.

------
nradov
We had a related earlier discussion about ISIS terrorists using commercial
drones as bombers.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13497150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13497150)

------
gonzo41
This is not an unreasonable idea. I'm just going to leave this here.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-
xBtVU4lg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-xBtVU4lg)

------
superzadeh
You can't hack an Eagle!

------
sslnx
I am very sceptical about using eagles to stop drones. Eagles are more
expensive to train and maintain, and they die.

The only viable solution against harmful drones are drones themselves.

~~~
crpatino
The more I think about it, the more I think this is a bluf to push drone
designers to overengineer their devices.

Eagles are not scalable, but it is way simpler to train a handful of them as a
proof of concept than to eagle-proof existing designs of drones. And given
physical and engineering limits, every countermeasure implemented in a drone
will cut into the effective payload that is available for the drone to carry
on its actual function.

The eagles were never meant to defeat the drones, but to force their designers
to handicap those.

------
ndh2
Alright, so they're getting leather gloves and are named after musketeers. How
about equipping them with rapiers? Disable the drone blades with blades!

------
gaius
In the movie _Legends of the Guardians_ the owls use steel over-talons to
battle their enemies, that approach could be used here too.

~~~
helb
From the article: "The military is designing mittens of leather and Kevlar, an
anti-blast material, to protect their talons"

------
CraigJPerry
"on the other side of the world" \- half way down the article but omitted from
the title.

------
pvaldes
Another fact to consider here also is that eagles do not fly at night.

------
mathattack
Wouldn't it just be easier to shoot the drones down?

------
njharman
That is a seriously large bird!

------
nepotism2016
Talk about animal abuse lol

------
ChrisEbner
Read this months ago, why is this news?

------
ommunist
A simple automatic pneumatic injection gun delivering 2 laser-targeted shots
of 30m distance, like this baby [http://www.haevic.co.za/index.php/products-
services/the-dart...](http://www.haevic.co.za/index.php/products-services/the-
dartdrone) can put eagle to a safe sleep, and ensure mission is not
interrupted.

~~~
taneq
That did not go where I thought it would.

(I was expecting some kind of net gun for the drones.)

~~~
ommunist
Well there are already deployed drones with tranquilizer dart guns that target
humans. Used as "drone fencing" of sensitive areas. Example shooting from
hexacopter:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOL9Kz2WNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOL9Kz2WNE)

~~~
Terr_
> Example shooting from hexacopter:
> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOL9Kz2WNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOL9Kz2WNE)

Uhm, that's not real or related. That's some guy's visual-effects project, and
the drone is CGI.

Perhaps you meant the manufacturer's movie here? Good luck shooting a diving
eagle.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OItoIIoSefI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OItoIIoSefI)

------
Synaesthesia
Wonder how this would fair on a predator drone firing hellfire missiles.

~~~
sschueller
You mean the drones that are actually inflicting fear and terror on
populations unlike the little camera drones the west is so afraid off.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Yep!

