
The Anti-Drone Drone - gipton
http://scientificamerican.com/article/the-anti-drone-drone
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etrautmann
Any RF engineers know how feasible it would be to take a yagi or other
directional antenna and put it on a gun stock and make an RF jammer that could
be directed at drones?

I was once testing a quadrotor that we built for IED detection with a group of
marines, and we discovered that the metal detectors that the IED teams were
carrying were able to completely fry our electronics from a couple of feet
away. I'm guessing the power required to do this from 100s of feet away is
significant, and the FCC doesn't take kindly to these sort of activities, but
it doesn't seem crazy if you only need a short but intense burst.

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semi-extrinsic
I would imagine taking apart a microwave oven and pointing the magnetron
waveguide into a parabolic dish could give you a decent drone killer - a
cheap, compact AC powered 1 kW 2.4 Ghz jammer should do some damage.

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walshemj
You would have to make sure you don't get in the beam - you could give your
self some nasty burn/radiation injuries with that set up

And the FCC would be having a word with you they don't allow civilians to run
things that hot you'd be looking at 20-24 dbi

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semi-extrinsic
I obviously wouldn't recommend doing this without proper RF safety training
and experience.

Regarding the FCC: Assuming a nice narrow pencil-beam aimed at space, would
they care much?

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Vexs
Doubt it, but getting a pencil beam is nigh impossible with radio, there's
going to be leakage somewhere. Also, you'd have a bunch of physicists asking
about how you got a beam that thin.

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semi-extrinsic
I haven't actually done the math, but for a parabolic dish which is much
larger than the waveguide diameter, shouldn't you get a very narrow beam?
Isn't that how microwave uplinks like the Ubiquiti airFibre5 can give you
wireless networks at gigabit speeds over hundreds of kilometers?

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radarsat1
It's struck me for some time that it's clear that drones should be fairly easy
to take down, and it must be one of the difficulties that e.g. Amazon is
facing in deploying delivery drones. All you need is a well-placed net. Is
this solution really any better than a simple T-shirt cannon?

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tachyonbeam
If they can fly high and relatively fast it shouldn't be too much of a
problem. Also, keep in mind that the drones can have cameras and broadcast
your takedown attempt. There could also be some automatic evasive actions
programmed in there.

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parados
A more wide ranging article: [http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/2165007...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21650071-hands-criminals-small-drones-could-be-menace-now-time)

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crimsonalucard
Sounds like I'm going to need an Anti Anti Drone Drone.

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venomsnake
Just some small laser that can fry the cam.

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koblas
Next thing we're going to have airborne battle bot competitions.

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dmpatierno
Maker Faire 2014

[http://www.tested.com/tech/robots/461486-maker-
faire-2014-mu...](http://www.tested.com/tech/robots/461486-maker-
faire-2014-multi-rotors-battle-game-drones/)

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Malstrond
Would love to see that big, heavy hex trying to catch a 250mm quad on a 6S
LiPo, e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxU4GdlTHDg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxU4GdlTHDg)

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walshemj
Would only have to get close enough - and then use some recoilless gun to
disable the target - maybe have two short barrelled guns firing shot gun
shells in opposite direction

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NickNameNick
Near people? That seems extremely reckless

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walshemj
Assuming you engage in the air not that much

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51Cards
"Not that much" is too much when a single person gets hit by a random shell.

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fit2rule
Fleets of drones are the only solution. And then: Drone-making drones! And
then: Drone-parts-harvesting-drones!

Only then can we have the drone wars we deserve.

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octatoan
And then they start making paperclips.

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pshc
Diamond Age, here we come.

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razzmataz
Toner wars, right?

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kevinmhickey
You beat me to it!

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liotier
Considering the small size of civilian drones and their mostly plastic
composition, such air combat antics are entirely superfluous - light lasers
will handle airspace interdiction nicely & cheaply.

~~~
detaro
Right to the moment where someone mounts a bunch of mirrors and your offensive
laser gets briefly reflected somewhere it really shouldn't go (random eyes,
flammable stuff, ...)

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vinceyuan
In 2016, the must-have feature of a drone will be anti-anti-drone.

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Silhouette
Why would you need an anti-anti-drone if your drone wasn't doing anything
dubious in the first place? Who's going to attack it with an anti-drone?

Drones seem to be one of the most polarising new technologies. On the one
hand, they have the potential for numerous beneficial applications. Just a few
that I've seen seriously proposed or actually implemented are:

\- searching large areas or dangerous locations for survivors after a natural
disaster

\- improving farming efficiency

\- (my personal favourite so far) transporting an AED to a patient having a
heart attack much quicker than any ground-based emergency vehicle can get
there

\- delivering more everyday items like books or groceries in the on-line
shopping era.

Obviously there are practical concerns around safety and efficiency, but
hopefully in time we'll develop good ways to address those.

On the other hand, there are inevitably people lining up who want to use the
same technologies to build more powerful weapons or more effective
surveillance systems. All of the usual concerns about the ethics of those
applications arise. And then all of the usual concerns about corrupting the
otherwise beneficial applications in order to turn drones into threats or
surveillance tools even though those devices were never created with such
intentions will arise as well.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a kind of drone/anti-drone arms race for
a while in those cases, particularly if non-military organisations like police
forces and local councils start routinely and ubiquitously deploying these
tools in civilian environments. I suspect that if they do then it will work
against them in the long run, in the same way that mass surveillance on-line
has prompted technological counter-measures that probably do make it harder
for genuine security service investigations to monitor legitimate surveillance
targets in some cases.

In some ways, I think the bigger danger will be the corruption/mission creep
problem. For example, large-scale drone "postal systems" might develop, and
maybe they'll offer much more efficiency and/or be more environmentally
friendly than today's driver-and-van networks. On the other hand, if they also
happen to fly around people's properties with high resolution cameras
recording all the time, they make concerns about Google's Street View or local
authority CCTV camera networks look like child's play. The answer here is
probably better transparency and regulation, but we aren't very good at either
of those right now, so again I could see the potential for a lot of people
being upset and a few (but probably enough) of them being willing to take
direct action in response, legal or otherwise.

IMHO it will be very unfortunate if that's the way our culture goes, but in
this of all issues I could see the technology becoming shunned because of fear
(legitimate or otherwise) of abuse.

~~~
vinceyuan
I was just joking... Take it easy.

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Rebelgecko
It looks like the quad getting ensared is a DJI Phantom. While a net will do
the job, all you really need to mess a Phantom within wifi range is a copy of
SSH.

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amelius
Important design aspect: making sure that during or after capture no objects
fall out of the sky.

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rednovae
This isn't an article, it's a paragraph!

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eridal
..and it somehow managed to get to FP

we should stop upvoting such clickbaits

