
The arms race for anti-drone weaponry - Futurebot
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/29/9631208/drone-defender-regulation-iacp
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logfromblammo
As an American (or 'Murican, if you prefer), the ham-handed attempt by
multiple hierarchical levels of government to rein in and control the
hobbyists flying cheap, miniaturized, computer-stabilized, remote-piloted
aircraft only makes me want to get one and fly it as an act of protest. If the
gummint banned them outright, I'd want two.

Knowing that the federals are themselves creating partially self-piloted full-
sized aircraft armed with lethal area-effect weaponry
(Predator/Reaper/Avenger/Grey Eagle) or surveillance arrays capable of
observing entire cities at once (Gorgon Stare/Constant Hawk/Angel Fire) makes
me angry at the hypocrisy and nervous about the potential consequences.

If nothing else, it undermines my enjoyment of modern and sci-fi subgenres of
the Western, and any War-genre movie with an underdog guerilla group. For
instance, when Hunger Games 3a showed me a fighter-bomber going down to a bow
and arrow, it was Sid Meier's Civilization modern jet fighter vs. archers-
stack all over again. It just can't happen, people; you can't fight war
machine X on the traditional battlefield without anti-X weaponry. And you
can't fight a nation that deploys hunter-killer drones with just AR-15s and
AK-47s. Your tactics have to change dramatically.

I think all this drone/anti-drone arms-racing is just going to push Americans
into inventing 5th-generation warfare sooner, and it's going to be really,
really ugly. Prison drug deliveries are just the tip of the iceberg.

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douche
Seems like a 12 gauge with birdshot would do a pretty decent job of taking
down any drone I've ever seen.

Seems like that might be a little cheaper than developing ECM to target
drones. Although if it is really just a pork-barrel, then a $200 shotgun with
$25 worth of shells is much less efficient than a multi-thousand dollar radar
jammer rifle.

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comrh
Max range for birdshot is ~120 feet so a drone can just increase its altitude
and be safe. Also you have to be aware of what is beyond your target which
might not be possible in an urban environment.

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Nadya
_> Max range for birdshot is ~120 feet _

Effective range for taking out a drone is "as far as the bird shot will shoot"
which is much further than ~120ft. We aren't talking about effective range
(e.g "breaking a clay plate").

That being said - your point about increasing altitude still stands. I'm not
sure how birdshot will go when shot near vertically - but it can travel well
over 200 yards horizontally depending on if you're using 04 or 08, etc. At a
certain point its harmless to humans unless it hits in the eye but as long as
it hits a blade of a drone it could still damage the drone and bring it down.
It doesn't need to completely destroy the drone like a point blank blast of a
double barrel with buckshot would.

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theklub
Makes sense, don't work on building a drone company, you're too late, build a
drone defense company and convince every police station they need your
product.

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elorant
Or build a drone that takes down other drones.

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jschwartzi
Was this article paid astroturfing for the Drone Defender?

It made some vague allusions to that product's market and then suggested that
federal regulations would prevent the sale of it to local law enforcement, but
I didn't see any real argument for why local law enforcement should be able to
buy jammers other than some isolated incidents in prisons. There also wasn't
any explanation for why the FCC and FAA have the rules about jamming. I
suspect devices like the Drone Defender are banned for good reason.

~~~
stormcrowsx
I would think jamming signals on anything flying is a bit on the dangerous
side. Yeah some commercial drones will gently land but there's no guarantee.
I'd also think it would not take the criminals they are trying to stop long to
realize it and find ways around it. Such as preprogramming flight paths in and
allowing them to fly without any need to have radio communication.

~~~
jschwartzi
You might be able to bring a drone in using accelerometers only. Given an
assumed measurement error and integration time for the sensor you could
calculate how far you'd need to be from the prison before the error in
position becomes a problem. So jamming doesn't really buy you anything if you
can program a flight path.

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wlesieutre
I bet you could build a drone that flies off of a visual guidance system using
IR beacons to locate itself. Something like a giant version of the Wii's
sensor bar.

IR beacons have the downside of blatantly broadcasting their positions, but
they might be less jammable than radio waves? OTOH, pointing an IR laser at
your camera isn't that hard, so maybe not.

You could also take a page from the SR-71 and correct your inertial guidance
system's error using star observations. Only needs to see up, so you can
shield it against blinding attempts from below. Can a drone-weight camera pick
up stars?

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zombees
The difference here is that a drone will not be doing 2200mph over 3k miles so
differences in the position of stars won't be particularly noticeable. You may
be able to do some trickery with a few outward facing cameras and some
software to map the horizon though.

~~~
wlesieutre
Yeah, I'd trust it more as a source of direction than a magnetometer though.

Horizon tracking would be super cool. You'd have to open your cameras to
blinding attacks again to make that work, but still. Even as a project
unrelated to getting around jamming, that would be a neat piece of tech.

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mring33621
How about a hunter drone that shoots/drops fishing line into the prey drone's
propellers/rotors?

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sophacles
It gets hard to do that fast -- I just picked up this guy for flying around my
house:

[http://reviews.costco.com/2070/100222794/syma-model-
aircraft...](http://reviews.costco.com/2070/100222794/syma-model-aircraft-
indus-syma-sky-thunder-rc-d63-drone-runner-reviews/reviews.htm)

The reason I chose it: there are enough dangling light pulls, and when I lose
control, enough other stringy things around the edges of the room, that I've
damaged props on other mini drones. The cage has effectively eliminated (or at
least severely reduced) the problem. I presume a slightly lager drone can have
better shielding.

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spacecowboy_lon
er does anyone producing these not know the radiation patterns for a yaggi -
held like a normal rifle you would have a nice high power lobe right through
the operators brain.

CISCO all ready do some very tasty airnet kit that attacks rouge ap's and
hosts.

~~~
Ao7bei3s
The signal wouldn't have to be very strong, it should be relatively harmless
for the operator. (Most rc rf transmitters send with <<1W PEP and a low-gain
antenna.).

Also, at multiple GHz (most rc rf links used today are 2.4 GHz (no, I don't
mean WLAN)), the waves don't penetrate the skin very well.

Also, Yagi antennas have (not perfectly, of course, but approximately)
unidirectional beam patters; that's what the reflector elements at the end are
for. The back lobe isn't very strong.

Also, the exposure would be for a very short amount of time.

Many radar operators are exposed to much, much stronger radiation on a
continuous basis. Though admittedly, they do get cancer.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
The actual emitted power is magnified by the antenna gain (say 14db) its not
consumer 100 mw any more. And those sort of antennas have very pronounced side
lobes.

And to get range they normally run these blue tooth/wifi sniper rifles much
hotter than your consumer wifi AP

PTP you can run 4W

~~~
Ao7bei3s
The antennas nominal gain applies only in the direction of the main lobe, ie.
not towards your head. A typical Yagis _strongest_ sidelobe will be _well_
into the negative dB.

Also, both the consumer hardware 100mW limit and the 4W PTP limit are EIRP (in
the US; apparently; I'm from Germany), so the gains don't matter. And you
achieve them with very directional antennas (which are hard to aim by hand),
not with a strong transmitter.

Radio range is not the problem at all when aiming by eye - because your target
is small, it's line of sight, and the pilot is likely not using a very strong
transmitter and a very directional antenna.

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jdowner
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Dzd9iaXX4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Dzd9iaXX4)

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6stringmerc
Asking for a friend: Is there any portable, viable laser device that could be
shoulder fired (backpack powered?) with enough energy to actually drill a hole
in one of these from afar? If talking jamming frequencies (illegal) then why
not just up the ante and go with a precision weapon? Zap N Crash!

~~~
Captain_Usher
I'm sure there's something like what you're describing in existence, probably
in a lab somewhere, clamped in front of a metal plate with burn marks on it. I
think you're out of luck on commercially available man-portable lasers for
effectively shooting down a drone in a real-world scenario. There's a reason
why people making videos of their lasers on Youtube are using them to pop
balloons.

Even if that sort of laser for sale at a reasonable cost, you probably don't
want or need one for killing drones. If you've escalated to actually blowing
the drone out of the sky, you might as well use a gun. Guns are great at that
and they're much cheaper. The bullets and shot you fire into the air do pose a
safety risk on the way back down, but if reasonable steps are taken it's
probably not a big enough deal to justify using a laser instead. (Caveat: in
dense urban areas it's very difficult to even begin taking those "reasonable
steps" and firing anything into the air is a recipe for tragedy. If you're
seriously looking to take out a drone in a city, a laser makes a lot more
sense.)

Another downside is that the laser needs to be held on its target to work, and
that's a pain in the ass when the target is a drone. Even a relatively stable
model flown by a skilled operator is still going to bob and weave, and the
drone is presumably not hovering perfectly still while you're trying to break
it. Today, hitting that target once with a shotgun is probably easier than
holding a laser on it for the amount of time you'd need.

In the future, that will probably not remain true. Lasers (or really any
devices that emit energy in a tight beam) are inherently better long-range
direct-fire weapons than firearms because the laser moves in a straight line
and you can get it to go farther. Travel time is pretty obviously another area
where lasers win. As laser technology improves, we'll see more powerful lasers
that can do damage in less time and automated platforms for doing the aiming.
A future scenario where militaries use automated energy weapons against
unmanned aircraft is very realistic, so a future scenario where a police
officer shoots down a drone with a laser is certainly within the realm of
possibility.

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mmosta
I'm half hoping pumpkin canon drone hunter becomes a thing, this video[0] is
beautiful.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC89KRV7l9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC89KRV7l9M)

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mansilladev
[http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/52600/52611/52611_lozenge_net_lg....](http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/52600/52611/52611_lozenge_net_lg.gif)

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wehadfun
Not a radio guy but there isn't some way to listen for radio signals, figure
out where they are comming from (to get the opperator) then duplicate them and
land the drone

~~~
swiley
It depends. Older style controls yes, but it wouldn't be hard to use encrypted
digital control signals and make that impossible.

