Newsletter subscribers received our exclusive break down of the FAA Authorization Act of 2018 for Counter-UAS
UAV Vision: Major Asian Governmental Agency Orders DroneGuns
DroneShield Ltd has announced that its distributor GT&E has purchased two units of its DroneGun Tactical product, for use by a national security agency of a major Asian country allied with the United States, to be deployed by the agency for drone threat mitigation. It is understood that the end-user undertook an extensive review process benchmarking DroneShield’s product against the limited range of competing solutions and, in the end, selected DroneShield’s product based on a combination of its effectiveness, product readiness and affordability.
Engadget: FAA clears DJI and other drone companies to fly near airports
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given nine companies permission to fly in controlled airspace, such as airports, as part of its Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) initiative. One of those nine companies is DJI, along with Aeronyde, Airbus, AiRXOS, Altitude Angel, Converge, KittyHawk, UASidekick and Unifly. It doesn’t mean operators can fly those brands’ drones over airports anytime they want, though — it only means that professional drone pilots can now get authorization to enter controlled airspace in near-real time instead of waiting for months.
C4ISRNET: Homeland Security got a thing and it’s called radar love
Is there a 20th century sensor more iconic than radar? In massive Doppler domes or forever-circling dishes at airports, radar installations scream massive infrastructure and far-reaching perception. Miniaturizing the technology has moved it from fixed installations to inside planes and even smaller versions in cars. This week, the Department of Homeland Security awarded $200,000 in funding for the final testing phase of radar tiny enough to fit on small drones.
Semiconductor Engineering: Anti-Drone Tech Emerges With Drone Growth
The ability of unmanned aerial vehicles to fly legally over fences, walls and property lines is disrupting more than just the few industries that use drones commercially. As the drone market grows, so does the anti-drone market. The market for products that track, trap or break unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is growing alongside the market for drones, much of it driven by fear that UAVs could be weaponized by terrorists or used as platforms for corporate espionage.
CBS 4 Denver: Company Offers Defense Against Drones Flying In Restricted Airspace
With small, cheap, commercial drones growing in popularity, a Colorado company is revolutionizing defense against drones. “We protect critical infrastructure,” said Kenneth Geyer the co-founder of Liteye Systems Inc. “When you think about it, anything is vulnerable from the sky. So, if you’ve got a power substation or you have an airport, if you’ve got a nuclear power plant, now you suddenly have this toy that can be armed and can be out doing something disruptive to your facility.”
Lawfare: The Necessary Authority to Counter Drone Threats
On Aug. 4, as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave a speech in front of the ranks of the Venezuelan National Guard, two DJI Matrice M600 drones took to the sky. Each drone was armed with a little less than a kilogram of explosives, their operators seemingly intent on assassinating Maduro. The effort was unsuccessful. One drone crashed into a building while the other appeared to explode in mid air; Maduro was unharmed. But amazingly, should someone try a similar attack in the United States, federal officers do not have sufficient legal authority to stop the drone in progress. The current version of the bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contains language that would enable federal authorities to directly counter these threats.
You Tube: The Lugansk Militias shoot down a UAV armed with a grenade [OR the payload that wouldn’t release]
CNET: Government authorities can now shoot down privately owned drones
President Donald Trump signed on Friday the Re-authorization Act for the Federal Aviation Authority, a law that contains a provision allowing government authorities to shoot down privately owned drones deemed a threat. The provision, called “Preventing Emerging Threats,” states that “personnel with assigned duties that include the security or protection of people, facilities, or assets” can disrupt, control, disable, intercept, interfere with, seize and exercise control of the drone. They also can damage or destroy the “unmanned aircraft system or unmanned aircraft” if need be.
Police announced Saturday that they prevented an attempt to smuggle cell phones into a security prison in the south of the country. In a statement, they said that it was part of a planned operation when they spotted the drone in the skies above the facility. A 56-year-old man was arrested after a police chase on foot, during which he was said to have tossed a number of phones he planned to fly into the prison. A 30-year-old woman was also arrested.
BBC: Perth Prison drug smugglers filmed themselves on drone camera
Paul Reilly, 32, and Michael Martin, 35, intended to get the drugs to Martin’s prisoner brother. But the drone crashed and when police studied footage from its camera, they found images of both men. At Perth Sheriff Court, Reilly was jailed for 33 months while Martin was sentenced to a year in prison.
Vertical: UDRI tests impact of drone on aircraft at high speed
When a large military helicopter collided midair with a small quadcopter last year, the helicopter sustained only minor damage and returned safely home; the drone was destroyed. But tests performed at the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) show that bigger may not always be better in contests between manned aircraft and even small UAVs.
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), more commonly called drones, have the potential to save lives, reduce risk, and fundamentally change the way some jobs are performed. In January 2018, lifeguards in Australia used UAS to drop inflatable life preservers to swimmers in trouble, responding much faster than they could in person and without risking additional lives. UAS could be used to respond to other emergencies by helping firefighters monitor wildfires or delivering defibrillators to those in cardiac distress. UAS also offer new ways to prevent disasters before they happen, such as the long-range inspection of rail lines to avoid potential derailments. While the many potential applications for UAS are promising, UAS pose new and uncertain risks to people in piloted aircraft and on the ground. At the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a study to evaluate the risks of integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System. The study committee believes that the introduction of a robust set of UAS operations is achievable and has the potential to provide significant net safety benefits to society. The report provides findings and recommendations intended to help FAA foster an environment where UAS can operate safely while also contributing to public health, safety, and economic growth.
Avionics International: US Defense Department Wary of Drones in Evolving US Airspace
The U.S. Defense Department does not think of small drones as toys — it thinks of them as threats, according to Col. Dan Furleigh, the U.S. Air Force’s division chief for military and civilian aviation integration. Furleigh spoke at the Air Traffic Controller Association’s annual conference Wednesday on a panel about the national airspace, and he focused on the military’s role in the equation: Fulfilling its mission to protect the skies. “My biggest concern is that the public views small UAS as toys, and that’s a dangerous culture we’ve been cultivating,” Furleigh said. “For the last 20 years, you’ve been able to purchase them at Toys-R-Us, but our adversaries are using them in dangerous ways.”
Shepard: AUSA 2018: New Dronekiller on target for production
The redesigned Dronekiller handheld counter-UAS device is expected to move into production in the first quarter of 2019, after racking up hundreds of pre-orders from international militaries and other government bodies. Displaying the latest iteration of the Dronekiller at the AUSA exhibition in Washington DC, IXI Technology representatives said that various foreign governments and militaries had pre-ordered more than 400 units for counter-UAS applications. The Dronekiller is a handheld counter-UAS device that employs software-defined radio (SDR) technology to detect and affect class 1 and class 2 UAS devices without the use of broadband jamming.
Army Times: Man-packable kamikaze drones offer front-line tracking and strike packages
Single-use suicide drones are making their way to the battlefield. UVision, a defense firm known for “lethal loitering systems,” fielded multiple variants of their own suicide drones at the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference in Washington this week. The company’s Hero-30 drone tips the scales at 16.5 pounds — to include launcher and munition — and measures roughly 37 inches in length. It offers front-line troops the opportunity to locate, track and attack targets with an airborne loiter time of 30 minutes. The small anti-personnel warhead on the Hero-30 weighs in at a little more than 1 pound and is capable of destroying light-skinned vehicles, motorbikes or troops in the open.