Drone-Freezing Ray Developed By Trio Of UK Companies
Three British companies have come together and created a ray gun called the Anti-UAV Defense System (AUDS) to deter drones from entering sensitive areas to either attack or spy by freezing them in mid-flight.
The AUDS jam the signal in such a way that the drone operator is more likely to believe that the drone has malfunctioned as opposed to being tampered with. The system joins a host of recently announced technologies which can blast larger drones out of the sky.
Apart from being able to jam the drone’s signal, thanks to a built-in camera that is equipped with thermal imaging capabilities, AUDS is also able to detect drones after which a high-powered radio signal will be focused on the drone and overlapping it in the process.
The jammed drone stops in the air in seconds and then crashes to the ground. Finally, the jamming device attacks it: Three antennas send out a radio frequency signal to the targeted drone, trying to cut it off from its original controller.
In addition to the radio disruptor, AUDS also has an optical disruptor that can disrupt the auto focus on the drone’s camera, rendering it useless.
According to the BBC, there are only a certain number of radio frequencies that drones use to communicate with home base. In an effort to convince the owner it is malfunctioning, the AUDS operator can select to freeze the drone for a short while or hold it in the sky until its battery dies and it crashes.
Speaking to the BBC, Paul Taylor of Enterprise Control Systems who helped develop AUDS (along with Blighter Surveillance Systems and Chess Dynamics) states, “It’s a radio signal. There are a number of frequency bands that are used by all of the manufacturers. We transmit into those frequencies in the direction of the UAV using a directional antenna. There’s quite a lot of radio power on to the UAV – so much so that it can only hear our AUDS signal.”
If the system works, maybe the White House should invest in one.
“Our system has been developed to address this urgent operational requirement and has been successful in government sponsored counter-UAV trials, detecting, and disrupting a variety of fixed and rotary wing drones in under 15 seconds”.
Liteye believes the system could be used by governments, airports, and law enforcement agencies who are experiencing an increasing amount of problems with drones as UAV numbers continue to rise due to plummeting costs.
The solution: 100 independent AI-assisted drones at once, from many directions.
All it takes is one, just cover all the electronics in copper mesh, and use cameras and image-recognition to position it instead of GPS. You can solve the autofocus problem by just getting rid of autofocus and using a tiny aperture.