Hi - just spotted this…
https://news.erau.edu/headlines/counter-drone-technology-to-be-commercialized-by-embry-riddle-and-drone-defense-systems-llc
It identifies drones flying illegally, hacks the controls to display a warning-msg to operator, if operator ignores it, then activates RTH to remove it from danger-zone. Personally I think it’s a good idea (as long as it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands!) but (as the commenter says) … if warning is ignored, why not just then retain the drone (maybe land it inside the danger zone (safely!) then make the owner come & retrieve it…on payment of a fine, of course 
Instead of sending it RTH for the muppet to re-attempt the next day…
The big problem is that custom drones can ignore rth’s. I’m sure a dji could be hacked to do the same? The only real way to stop a drone is a) jamming the receiver if it is being flown manually or b) jamming the gps if it is on a programmed flight path. The gps bit is the problem as it would jam everyone in the area. I think anyway.
2 Likes
Where can I buy one of these?
You could try it out on a field near Rockingham this weekend. 
Jamming the receiver which would be on the 900mhz or 2.4ghz spectrum would also cause massive issues, specially the 2.4ghz one as that is what wifi runs on.
You then of course also run the risk of causing a relatively stable and “safe” object in the air to become an unsafe projectile that could cause serious damage if it were to strike anyone.
Likewise for interfering with video which uses the 5.8ghz spectrum, again wifi uses the same frequencies so could cause issues, by all means tap into the feed and locate the pilot that way, then of course you can throw the book at them for flying illegally. Education is the only way this is going to work.
Really?
IF there really was a drone disrupting Gatwick at Christmas, this was a pretty determined individual, intent on causing disruption.
I don’t see such an individual responding to any education that’s not focused on how he could increase the disruptive impact of his actions.
Those that have the mental capacity for “education” already have the simple common sense to know where not to fly.
1 Like
Which is where the ability to locate the pilot so they can throw the book at them would be required. Either thirty hijacking the fpv feed or GPS to get a take off location.
If the person is using something like Litchi - he could have the camera covered over - and he has a massive area around the location to fly to that police could never cover.
“Hijacking the GPS” will tell them where he is - not where he took off from. The home point is stored in the drone’s memory. And - he doesn’t even have to land back to where he took off - so knowing the HomePoint would be of no use.
You mention Litchi which means its a DJI drone, statistically this is highly likely to be true as they control over 70% of the market, this would also mean that the police/military would also have access to the DJI Aeroscope which would allow them to see all the above mentioned information.
Other manufacturers like Parrot, Yuneec etc would/should also have a similar system, this leaves only the custom build ones to consider, which would require nothing more than the ability to hijack the 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz signal, to intercept the radio/video transmission and try pinpoint the pilot.
Blocking the signal would do nothing but cause the UAV to crash reducing the chance of finding the pilot significantly. Unless they can recover it and pull finger prints from it and cross reference them against known criminals.
That would require a logical approach to this problem though and not a ham fisted one “officials” prefer.
what I said was
Yup - that could be totally autonomous and need no signal whatsoever.
Indeed - Litchi with DJI you can turn off the RC - so you could probably turn off the drone transmitters.
2 Likes
The other issue with custom built, is setting a mission, the land point could be miles from take off. If they haven’t installed a telemetry transmitter then the mission is stored in the flight controller and doesn’t get transmitted over RF so the only way with these conditions is to manually track the drone.
True. Not sure if the mod can track a small custom build. And maybe the carbon fibre doesn’t do radar any favours due to the fibres absorbing the frequency so appearing invisible. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.
If you build an FPV quad that transmits and receives on frequencies well outside of the normal RC bands 2.4 and 5.8GHZ while using an APM or similar open source flight controller, the jammer would not have a chance. You can buy analogue DIY home build 35MHz radio control transmitter and receiver kits off the internet, with radio Amateur knowledge, you could completely change the Tx and Rx frequency. You could even use mobile phones as the transmitter and receiver with the right know how! I very much doubt that they would jam phone signals as they would be disrupt the signals of mounds of mobile phones when used! Sorry no life saving 999 calls while we stop this drone!
I think this anti drone stuff is more pissing into the wind to make it look to Joe public like the powers that be are in control.
2 Likes