Drones over gatwick..

Acme said:
Maybe on the Police system, but nobody can find out about it via checks etc.
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If they answered yes on the ESTA form to being arrested then when they applied for a visa they would have to supply a police record check, which from how I understand it would show a persons police record.

There is still no evidence that a crime was ever committed. The whole situation is a farce, and the cops involved have brought the police force in to disrepute.
 
silvagti said:
According to security minister Ben Wallace we now have "systems to combat drones/ drone detection systems" though nobody is saying what they are or how they work! Apparently it's a secret? Perhaps it runs on magic and only works if you believe in it....!
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Pretty simple, they jam it or intercept the signal and then send out a stronger one to take control of it.
 
Nasher said:
Pretty simple, they jam it or intercept the signal and then send out a stronger one to take control of it.
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That only works if the signal is either analogue, unencrypted, or you have access to either the specific encryption key used for that drone/controller combo or a master key from the manufacture.

So that may work for some of the big name commercially available drones, but probably not for any drone that works over say an encrypted mobile phone connection, and will never touch a drone that is running in "autonomous" mode and set not to accept external control signals (or only to accept them in a certain area/after a certain time).

If someone had bad intentions it would not be massively hard to build one that could run without any outside controls, especially with the sort of stuff you can do with things like arduino and ARM based systems combined with stuff from the drone/RC world as so much of it is modular and designed to be easy to customised, I'd be amazed if no one has built a drone with basic image recognition (via say a pi and camera) to locate a landing spot, some sort of altimeter* and INS so it can be programmed to find it's way to a safe location from a known start point without even GPS, let alone active human control.


*Given you can buy laser measures cheaply (where the size seems to be determined mainly by the need for a human to use it, and a cheap alkaline battery that'll last a long time) I'd be surprised if there isn't a module for use in homebrew kits with the laser measure and an easy to connect output.
 
You don't need to decrypt it if you are only boosting/repeating the signal (same way people steal keyless entry cars). Then you can then start disrupting it to make it fall out of the sky.

If they can't take control of it they can fry the electronics using microwaves.
 
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Nasher said:
You don't need to decrypt it if you are only boosting/repeating the signal (same way people steal keyless entry cars). Then you can then start disrupting it to make it fall out of the sky.

If they can't take control of it they can fry the electronics using microwaves.
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How exactly do you jam it without jamming a whole lot of other stuff?
 
I thought most of the new gen of R/C used frequency hopping, so how could that be blocked unless you take out a whole range, affecting god knows what else in the local area?
 
h4rm0ny said:
How exactly do you jam it without jamming a whole lot of other stuff?
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Normally you can't, but it's only going to be certain frequencies (like 2.4ghz which most RC stuff operates on) and a small area. It's not going to cause huge problems. They won't be wiping out all wifi within 10 miles :p

They probably used troops from the Royal Signals. Who will know what they're doing.
 
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Nasher said:
You don't need to decrypt it if you are only boosting/repeating the signal (same way people steal keyless entry cars). Then you can then start disrupting it to make it fall out of the sky.

If they can't take control of it they can fry the electronics using microwaves.
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Erm with keyless entry cars they're only having to relay the signal. Any attempt to change that signal would stop it working.

There is a lot of difference between relaying an encrypted signal and actually making any changes to it that will be accepted, let alone still usable.

It's like sending an encrypted letter, you can scan it and send it over the internet rather than deliver it in person or pass it on to the cycle courier, but that doesn't mean you know what's in it let alone have the ability to change the contents.

Also good luck frying electronics with microwaves at any distance without also the high chance of doing something to the walking sacks of water, or the other far more sensitive electronics you tend to find at airports, electronics that are often connected to things intended to pickup RF and can't be shielded as easily as a drones electronics...(remembering that you need to locate the drone to target it, and preferably be close enough to it that you can use a lower power, and have nothing in the way of it).
 
Nasher said:
You can direct microwaves. That's how microwave transmitters work :p
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That is sort of given.

But you need to make sure you know where the drone is, and try to avoid getting anything else in the same direction, and have the transmitter close enough you didn't need silly power outputs.

So you'd probably need a fair few of the transmitters, able to be aimed at the drone quickly and keep on "target", and preferably with lock outs to stop them aiming at say the aircraft that's parked up, or the control tower, or the human that's standing between it and the drone...

Or to put it another way, many of the same sort of issues you have with a gun.

I suspect the CAA and the like would soon have words if you pointed a strong microwave transmitter and it say crashed the communications in the control tower, or fried people's mobile phones and other communications equipment, or even just killed off mobile phone and wifi use for a few miles behind the drone

IIRC at the moment direction microwave transmitters tend to be very carefully positioned, and most will likely be far lower power than would be needed to fry a drone's electronics (if just because no one wants to pay the extra cost above what is strictly needed for maintaining communication links in normal directional systems).
 
You can direct them, but you can't control the fanning out at all (yet), you'll lose huge swaths of signal in the noise created behind the drone.
 
Werewolf said:
That is sort of given.

But you need to make sure you know where the drone is, and try to avoid getting anything else in the same direction, and have the transmitter close enough you didn't need silly power outputs.

So you'd probably need a fair few of the transmitters, able to be aimed at the drone quickly and keep on "target", and preferably with lock outs to stop them aiming at say the aircraft that's parked up, or the control tower, or the human that's standing between it and the drone...

Or to put it another way, many of the same sort of issues you have with a gun.

I suspect the CAA and the like would soon have words if you pointed a strong microwave transmitter and it say crashed the communications in the control tower, or fried people's mobile phones and other communications equipment, or even just killed off mobile phone and wifi use for a few miles behind the drone

IIRC at the moment direction microwave transmitters tend to be very carefully positioned, and most will likely be far lower power than would be needed to fry a drone's electronics (if just because no one wants to pay the extra cost above what is strictly needed for maintaining communication links in normal directional systems).
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StriderX said:
You can direct them, but you can't control the fanning out at all (yet), you'll lose huge swaths of signal in the noise created behind the drone.
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It seems to me there are a number of potential avenues to explore but that with our current technological and safety constraints our best approach right now is drone-hunting drones - fast, specialist drones equipped with whatever is needed to bring down a target drone. Escalation can be hindered by reasonable laws restricting the capabilities of civilian drones (speed, primarily).
 
h4rm0ny said:
It seems to me there are a number of potential avenues to explore but that with our current technological and safety constraints our best approach right now is drone-hunting drones - fast, specialist drones equipped with whatever is needed to bring down a target drone. Escalation can be hindered by reasonable laws restricting the capabilities of civilian drones (speed, primarily).
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Just needs a deployable light-weight net I guess.

Get something like the Floss frame with a battery that lasts a decent amount (sadly would be less than ten mins) it will be able to carry something less than a go pro in weight.
 
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