Anti-Drone Gun That Takes Control Of Drones

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I can see law enforcement or the government using something like this. I just don't see how it "controls" the drone and makes it land like they show in the video. Blocking the signal? Sure. But I don't know how it controls the drone.

Battelle's DroneDefender is designed as a point-and-shoot system that looks like an elaborate shoulder raygun with two antennae, a software-defined radio, and jamming circuitry. It works by firing a radio beam in a 30° cone that jams the control and GPS navigation frequencies to disable drones at distances of up to 400 m (1,300 ft).
 
I just don't see how it "controls" the drone and makes it land like they show in the video.

I believe it relies on the design features were drones when they lose communications automatically land for safety reasons.
 
Only a matter of time before theres an anti-anti-drone feature built into these cheap chinese drones.
 
Drone Wars - Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!
title2-620x330.jpg
 
This device is so illegal.
Can't wait for some fucktard to start aiming this at planes that are landing or automated cars.
People will just start programming drones to be more autonomous.
 
Pretty sure signal jamming was made illegal by the FCC.

There are exceptions for certain organizations. For instance, the military. There are still regulations which control when and where they can jam, but they do having and use jamming equipment.
 
I believe it relies on the design features were drones when they lose communications automatically land for safety reasons.

You might be correct, but I suspect it's something a little slicker. For instance, at a basic level jamming is just transmitting a more powerful signal at a reciever so that the reciever is overpowered by your trasmission and not the intended recipient's tramsmission.

In other words, the military would jam an enemy's radios by sending a more powerful signal and normally that signal would be unintelligable noise, they just want it to sound like atmospherics or something. It's done that way so the enemy doesn't know for sure they are being jammed and stay on their current frequncies not realizing we know what freqs they are using at the moment. But you could just as easily overpower their signals with Cyndy Lauper tunes or whatever.

The same would be true for a drone, if you can identify the control signals and know what to send as a landing control signal, you just overpower the controller's signal with your own that send the signals needed to tell the drone to land and it will land. If the controlling transmitter uses more sophisticated signal processing, say frequency hopping, you can broadcast the "landing signal" over a broad-band spectrum so like, all the frequencies at once. That way it doesn't matter that the drone is changing which freq it's listening on at any given milisecond, the signal is being sent on all of them.

Anyway, that's the short version.
 
Ahh, reading further ...
It works by firing a radio beam in a 30° cone that jams the control and GPS navigation frequencies to disable drones at distances of up to 400 m

At the moment this looks like the simplified version, basicly directed "barrage jamming". A form of "brute force" jamming simply intended to prevent the reciever from getting it's intended control signals. This is complimented by ensuring that GPS is jammed so any drone which relies on GPS positioning to navigate will not be able to do so, even autonomously.

Therefor drescherjm is correct according to this article. The drone will obey whatever it is programmed to do in the absence of control signals, land, hover till it's out of power, whatever. But without GPS it probably can't return home on loss of signal or return to the controller's location.
 
I thought the name Battelle looked familiar, they are a Defense Contractor, therefor developing technology that is illegal for most people to use would not be illegal for them to develope and sell to those the government says can have it.

http://www.battelle.org/our-work/national-security

Battelle is a highly diverse R&D corporation. From Pharma to Energy to DoD contracts, they've carved out a highly profitable niche in government-protected corporate welfare markets.
 
And we should interpret this "Because, US FAA regulations prohibited an actual demonstration, the video below shows a simulation of the DroneDefender in use.", as ... because we don't want to actuallly show or tell you the device's full capabilities and limitations, we'll be using this excuse for not giving you an actual demonstration.

At least we know they have to test it somewhere right?
 
Battelle is a highly diverse R&D corporation. From Pharma to Energy to DoD contracts, they've carved out a highly profitable niche in government-protected corporate welfare markets.

If that's how you like to think of it ;)
 
Only a matter of time before theres an anti-anti-drone feature built into these cheap chinese drones.
No need, as only the government, military, and LEO would be using these. Its so unbelievably illegal for a civilian to operate these, even on their own property, that its simply not going to be a threat that regular folks keep a jammer gun in the garage.

Besides, I would think you'd probably have to wear some kind of shielding if its truly high powered, if you're going to be shouldering the thing.
 
No need, as only the government, military, and LEO would be using these. Its so unbelievably illegal for a civilian to operate these, even on their own property, that its simply not going to be a threat that regular folks keep a jammer gun in the garage.

Besides, I would think you'd probably have to wear some kind of shielding if its truly high powered, if you're going to be shouldering the thing.

Doubt you need any personal shielding. The shape of the "barrel" looks like a yagi antenna, which is a highly directional antenna with a narrow cone shaped transmission arc. The Drone Defender is rated at an effective range of 400 meters (quarter mile), so I don't believe it's that powerful.

Now if you combine this with a fricken laser to burn a drone down after it's stopped moving from the interference that would be cool overpowered. :p
 
Last time I went up to the mountain I saw drone flying around. It was very loud and it felt like I was being spied on. I'm generally pro freedom but I'm not really a fan of drones. I can see them causing problems if their use becomes more prevalent.
 
With a complete loss of gps and control signal mine will return home but it will only be able to use the compass to return to its point of origin as it remembers where that origin direction is. The other fail safe is maintain position and slowly descend until control is resumed which is likely as this device is going to lose its directional hold and the operators radio will gain control again. and then he will just pick it up and go home.
 
Oh yea? I'll build a Ant-Anti-Drone Gun, with black and hookers. My gun takes control over your gun and therefore control over the drone. You know what? Forget the gun.
 
I think this is more like an anti drone gun that takes AWAY the users control.
 
useless video re-inaction of what the system should be able to do. FCC rules prevent this kind of tech for going public. I think its a publicity stunt.
 
This could be defeated with a trivial software update. Just have the vehicle fall back to magnetic compass + accelerator and barometer readings for a RTB until GPS and/or control signals can be reestablished. I'd be surprised if many flight controllers don't do this already.
 
It's interesting that they had it mounted on an AR15 frame but without the barrel.
 
Doubt you need any personal shielding. The shape of the "barrel" looks like a yagi antenna, which is a highly directional antenna with a narrow cone shaped transmission arc. The Drone Defender is rated at an effective range of 400 meters (quarter mile), so I don't believe it's that powerful.

Now if you combine this with a fricken laser to burn a drone down after it's stopped moving from the interference that would be cool overpowered. :p
I understood those antennas also had a bit of leakage directly rearward as well, and so you're basically holding a powerful microwave oven gun right in line with your head.

In any case, I can see these being useful in guard towers for people dropping goodies over prison walls and the like, wanting to capture rather than destroy the drone, or around crowded areas that police are to protect like presidential speeches and what not where firing a kinetic weapon is dangerous, but either way none of us have to worry because radio frequency jamming like this is super illegal and if a civilian could buy one, if anyone saw him he could end up in rape-me-in-the-ass-federal-prison, so the drone pilot would get the last laugh.
 
This could be defeated with a trivial software update. Just have the vehicle fall back to magnetic compass + accelerator and barometer readings for a RTB until GPS and/or control signals can be reestablished. I'd be surprised if many flight controllers don't do this already.
If police are using this, they might want just that. Follow the drone "home" and observe who picks it up and nab them.

Might be useful if long range drones become viable anytime soon, which could be couriers for drugs.
 
This could be defeated with a trivial software update. Just have the vehicle fall back to magnetic compass + accelerator and barometer readings for a RTB until GPS and/or control signals can be reestablished. I'd be surprised if many flight controllers don't do this already.

If I were designing this system, I'd have it spoof the signal so the drone doesn't lose it. Then slowly increase the altitude reading so the drone will try to correct its false climb, and eventually gently correct itself into the ground. Of course this assumes that the drone is purely navigating on gps, and not checking or equipped with a conventional altimeter.
 
Wonder what the MSRP will be for potential government customers, and will it be considered ITAR? Either way, another soft-kill tool for force protection measures is a step in the right direction.

For military in-theatre where RF power doesn't matter... lock a missile fire control radar onto the drone... it should fry the transceiver in a couple seconds if its <1 mile away.
 
Doubt you need any personal shielding. The shape of the "barrel" looks like a yagi antenna, which is a highly directional antenna with a narrow cone shaped transmission arc. The Drone Defender is rated at an effective range of 400 meters (quarter mile), so I don't believe it's that powerful.

Now if you combine this with a fricken laser to burn a drone down after it's stopped moving from the interference that would be cool overpowered. :p

Pretty much agreed, it's doesn't have to be "high powered", just significantly stronger at the vicinity of the drone then the controller's signals. Being directional means it's far less likely to interfere with other recievers.
 
useless video re-inaction of what the system should be able to do. FCC rules prevent this kind of tech for going public. I think its a publicity stunt.

Battelle's target consumer isn't the public, it's the military and other federal agencies. I could see this used at the White House. Maybe a sensative facility like a Nuclear power plant. You get the idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/18/politics/white-house-drone-charges/

http://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2015/04/23/droning-on-over-nuclear-power-plants/
 
With the potential for drones to be purchased with bitcoins and then be used for short distance transport of illegal drugs, it makes sense for us to not only have this kind of radio equipment, but also to ban most radio operated stuff like quadrotors and model planes/rockets.
 
This could be defeated with a trivial software update. Just have the vehicle fall back to magnetic compass + accelerator and barometer readings for a RTB until GPS and/or control signals can be reestablished. I'd be surprised if many flight controllers don't do this already.

If your purpose for the gun is to capture the drone then yes. But if your purpose is to "shoo" nosey drones away from an area that you don't want any drones in, then it would serve it's purpose just fine.

Add some RADAR and other sensors and you have an Automated Drone Fence.
 
Wonder what the MSRP will be for potential government customers, and will it be considered ITAR? Either way, another soft-kill tool for force protection measures is a step in the right direction.

For military in-theatre where RF power doesn't matter... lock a missile fire control radar onto the drone... it should fry the transceiver in a couple seconds if its <1 mile away.

On the technical side, a Fire Control RADAR is a RADAR classification used for Gun Systems like Anti-Aircraft Artillery, not missile systems. But you are correct that a strong enough signal could damage the RF recievers on the drone.

Myself, I would be more interested in DFing the source of the control signals and finding the operator. I want to return his equipment to him, I would prefer not to damage it, and if the operator is doing something illegal or unsafe, I'd want the Sherriffs Office to give him a warning or ticket him if he won't take the hint. Now if they guy turns out to be a spy or something, well we have ways of making him talk :p
 
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