Drone-catchers emerge on
a new aerial frontier
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[March 21, 2017]
By Stephen Nellis
SAN
LEANDRO, Calif. (Reuters) - The enemy drone whined in the distance. The
Interceptor, a drone-hunting machine from Silicon Valley startup
Airspace Systems, slinked off its launch pad and dashed away in hot
pursuit.
The hunter twisted through the air to avoid trees, homed in on its
target, fired a Kevlar net to capture it, and then carried the rogue
drone back to its base like a bald eagle with a kill.
Airspace is among some 70 companies working on counter-drone systems as
small consumer and commercial drones proliferate. But unlike others, it
aims to catch drones instead of disabling them or shooting them down.
A demonstration at Airspace headquarters in San Leandro, California,
showed a compact aircraft just a few feet wide, yet capable of
sophisticated, autonomous navigation and accurate targeting of a drone
in motion.
It is still early days in the drone-defense business. Security
professionals both public and private worry about dangerous drones at
military sites, airports, data centers, and public venues like baseball
stadiums. But counter-measures carry risk, too.
For example, the U.S. Air Force recently tested experimental shotgun
shells for shooting down drones. But if the drone carries a payload like
a bomb or chemical weapon, it could still fall on its target.
Jamming the radio signals to the drone does not always work, either.
Drones differ from “remote-controlled” aircraft because they can fly to
pre-set coordinates autonomously. The fastest drones can reach 150 miles
per hour (240 km), too quick for human pilots flying another drone to
catch.
The technical challenge of safely stopping a dangerous drone appealed to
Guy Bar-Nahum, one of the inventors of the Apple iPod and the
engineering brains behind Airspace Systems.
"We are creating a very primitive brain of an insect, a dragonfly,"
Bar-Nahum said. "It wakes up, sees the world and doesn't really know
where it is. But it has goals to capture the other drone, and it's
planning a path in the world and knows how to move through the world."
The Interceptor must pack computing power and sophisticated software
into that tiny drone brain. Unlike the emerging driverless car, it has
to understand its environment without the benefit of an internet
connection to a massive mapping database.
“My background is in physics, and it’s all about modeling the world”
with math, Bar-Nahum said. “What we do in this lowly startup that looks
to be a normal, military ‘take ‘em down’ kind of company is build
machines that can model the world.”
The business model is challenging too. Currently, only law enforcement
officials have the authority to interfere with another drone's flight.
Regulations also require a certified pilot to stand ready to intervene
in any commercial drone flight and keep a line-of-sight view of the
aircraft.
Thus Airspace Systems will not be selling its aircraft, but rather
leasing a system, complete with operators and a mobile command center,
to customers.
The New York Mets have an interest in using the system to protect Citi
Field in New York City, according to Sterling VC, the venture capital
arm of Sterling Equities, which owns the stadium and also invested in
Airspace.
DETECTION AND DESTRUCTION
The danger from hostile drones became more clear in the last few months
when the U.S. military said Islamic State fighters were using them to
attack Iraqi troops in the battle over Mosul. The military news site
Defense One reported ISIS was using an array of consumer-style drones,
including an agile quadcopter version for dropping explosives.
[to top of second column] |
Jaz Banga, co-founder and chief executive of Airspace Systems, holds
a prototype drone his company developed at the company's office in
Castro Valley, California March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
At
least 70 companies worldwide are working on various types of counter-drone
systems, said Mike Blades, aerospace and defense analyst with Frost & Sullivan.
San Francisco-based Dedrone, for example, has raised $28 million in venture
capital and is focused on detecting drone incursions. It now has about 200
customers, according to CEO and co-founder Joerg Lamprecht. Some are car
companies looking to protect new designs from the automotive press and others
are data center owners looking to keep drones from damaging critical rooftop
cooling systems.
"Most
of the market is going to be detection, something like a burglar alarm,"
Lamprecht said.
DroneShield, an Australian company, also makes a detection system and has
developed a prototype electronic jamming gun to ground a drone.
Airspace, backed by $5 million from Shasta Ventures and Sterling VC, hopes to
bring its drone-capture system to market as early as this summer.
But Airspace's approach has limitations. Chief among them: the Interceptor
catches one drone at a time. To defend against multiple drones, Airspace must
launch multiple machines.
"The
swarm of drones is going to be the threat," said Blades.
Beyond that, catching drones incurs expense and complication when simpler
measures might do. Dedrone's Lamprecht gives an example from a German customer
that makes cars.
At its test track, the customer wanted to protect new car designs from drones'
prying eyes. When Dedrone detects an intrusion, the car's driver hits a
dashboard button to fire a fog bomb to obscure the car.
But James Bond-style diversions, or even forcing a drone down, may prove
insufficient if a craft is hovering above a crowd with something dangerous, like
an explosive or poison. In such a situation, capturing and carrying away the
enemy drone may be the best option, even if it is complex and expensive.
For Airspace, perfecting a drone-hunting machine than can see - and chase - on
its own is not as crazy as it may seem.
"This is an old ambition. You can read about it in Jules Verne or Aldous
Huxley," said Bar-Nahum. "That's why autonomous movement is the next decade for
me."
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Mary Milliken)
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