There is a solid rationale for prioritizing safe, secure and controlled RF cyber-based counter-UAS technology as decision makers consider future standards.
While the U.S. and partner militaries in Europe and the Middle East cope with the threat of lethal unmanned aircraft system (UAS) attacks, the growing presence of commercial drones in the U.S. — more than two million and rising — poses a security threat here. Just this year, numerous incidents occurred in American stadiums, airports and prisons.
A drone intrusion at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico led to the diversion of an incoming flight, creating disruptions across the Caribbean. In Maryland, a drone intrusion delayed the AFC Championship game. Prisons in South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and New York have all registered incidents involving unauthorized drones.
As the number of commercial drones in the U.S. grows and dangerous drone incidents occur, authorities must consider this new threat and agree on how best to ensure safety and security.
The future will bring millions more small drones, many used for productive public and private purposes. Estimates are that the market for commercial drones will approach $50 billion worldwide by the end of this decade.
This new reality is putting pressure on government authorities to permit more widespread use of drones, accelerate FAA approvals, and open the airspace more fully to drone operations. Before long, we should expect to see drones routinely delivering cargo and performing mission-critical and life-saving tasks.
There is understandable concern about congestion of our airspace and the potential for mishaps, but how will authorities keep all this UAS traffic from creating hazards?
As a solution, drone countermeasures follow a process of detection, location, identification and mitigation.
To implement effective countermeasures, detection, location and identification of any drone is imperative in determining if it is a potential hazard.
However, taking action to mitigate a rogue drone once it has been identified is a different matter, raising issues of collateral damage and other hazards. There are reasonable policy concerns surrounding traditional methods of mitigation, some of which could have unwanted consequences.
With a kinetic system — one that shoots some form of projectile, a net, a laser beam or a high-powered microwave at a small commercial drone before it gets in the way of an incoming aircraft or otherwise poses a threat — the resulting debris cannot be controlled, and may pose a risk to public safety.
Disrupting the flight of a drone by jamming the radio frequency signals could potentially destabilize its flight, causing the drone to crash and creating a potential safety hazard on the ground. Jamming can also disrupt other communications and operations in the vicinity.
Meanwhile, with the exception of a few federal agencies, Washington has not delegated official authority to security agencies to take action with unauthorized drones in flight. Given the unresolved status of federal policymaking on this issue, there will be major gaps in counter-UAS protection until an agreed upon mitigation system is authorized to be engaged on the spot by local security authorities.
Time is not on the side of government decision makers.
The question is, must we wait for a catastrophic event to happen before the authority to act is delegated from Washington? Hopefully not, but the question remains how to address the need for authority without incurring the collateral damage risks associated with jamming, kinetic and other common mitigation solutions.
As a more nuanced solution, a cyber approach processes data from radio frequency (RF) communications and controls the drone and directs it away from controlled airspace. This is a viable solution for many settings, and it should be considered now as it provides the ability to detect an unauthorized drone instantly with no line-of-sight access.
The risk of a false positive is virtually eliminated by the capability to understand the control communications of a drone. Authorized drones will not be affected by an RF-cyber counter-UAS system and an intruding drone can be instantly characterized as unauthorized.
RF cyber-based counter-UAS solutions appear to have better potential to evolve with the advances of small commercial and private drone technology. In extreme situations, technologies such as EnforceAir from D-Fend Solutions, which was deployed, for example, to protect the Pope at an open-air mass in December 2021, must be effective in the increasingly crowded, noisy and dense air operations and communications environments.
Undoubtedly, kinetic and jamming solutions will evolve, but one should anticipate that RF-cyber counter-drone technology will be preferred in many environments, and thus will continue to evolve as well. The ability to pick an unauthorized drone out of congested airspace; the ability to sustain control over the rogue drone; and the ability to ensure that the system is used only in the intended manner, are all metrics important to the future of airspace safety.
A question is sometimes raised about the ability of a counter-drone system to gauge the “intent” of a drone. Relying on interpretation of a radar signature or flight profile would almost certainly incur a higher possibility of error, complicating a decision to “mitigate,” which can only be taken after a drone has been characterized as a hazard or threat. One can readily see that restricted airspace will be safest under a system that pre-authorizes drones, and then mitigating any whose profile — like a digital airline boarding pass — is not in the system.
From a policymaker’s perspective, every line of counter-UAS research and development should be advanced, but due to the inherent limits of kinetic, net-capture or jamming systems in congested civil airspace, there is a solid rationale for prioritizing safe, secure and controlled RF cyber-based counter-UAS technology as decision makers consider future standards. It is proven, non-hazardous and in use now as a method most likely to sustain the level of modernization necessary to keep pace with commercial drone threats in the years ahead.
Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. is former assistant secretary of State for political-military affairs.
Confronting the growing drone threat
There is a solid rationale for prioritizing safe, secure and controlled RF cyber-based counter-UAS technology as decision makers consider future standards.
While the U.S. and partner militaries in Europe and the Middle East cope with the threat of lethal unmanned aircraft system (UAS) attacks, the growing presence of commercial drones in the U.S. — more than two million and rising — poses a security threat here. Just this year, numerous incidents occurred in American stadiums, airports and prisons.
A drone intrusion at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in Puerto Rico led to the diversion of an incoming flight, creating disruptions across the Caribbean. In Maryland, a drone intrusion delayed the AFC Championship game. Prisons in South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and New York have all registered incidents involving unauthorized drones.
As the number of commercial drones in the U.S. grows and dangerous drone incidents occur, authorities must consider this new threat and agree on how best to ensure safety and security.
The future will bring millions more small drones, many used for productive public and private purposes. Estimates are that the market for commercial drones will approach $50 billion worldwide by the end of this decade.
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This new reality is putting pressure on government authorities to permit more widespread use of drones, accelerate FAA approvals, and open the airspace more fully to drone operations. Before long, we should expect to see drones routinely delivering cargo and performing mission-critical and life-saving tasks.
There is understandable concern about congestion of our airspace and the potential for mishaps, but how will authorities keep all this UAS traffic from creating hazards?
As a solution, drone countermeasures follow a process of detection, location, identification and mitigation.
To implement effective countermeasures, detection, location and identification of any drone is imperative in determining if it is a potential hazard.
However, taking action to mitigate a rogue drone once it has been identified is a different matter, raising issues of collateral damage and other hazards. There are reasonable policy concerns surrounding traditional methods of mitigation, some of which could have unwanted consequences.
With a kinetic system — one that shoots some form of projectile, a net, a laser beam or a high-powered microwave at a small commercial drone before it gets in the way of an incoming aircraft or otherwise poses a threat — the resulting debris cannot be controlled, and may pose a risk to public safety.
Disrupting the flight of a drone by jamming the radio frequency signals could potentially destabilize its flight, causing the drone to crash and creating a potential safety hazard on the ground. Jamming can also disrupt other communications and operations in the vicinity.
Meanwhile, with the exception of a few federal agencies, Washington has not delegated official authority to security agencies to take action with unauthorized drones in flight. Given the unresolved status of federal policymaking on this issue, there will be major gaps in counter-UAS protection until an agreed upon mitigation system is authorized to be engaged on the spot by local security authorities.
Read more: Commentary
Time is not on the side of government decision makers.
The question is, must we wait for a catastrophic event to happen before the authority to act is delegated from Washington? Hopefully not, but the question remains how to address the need for authority without incurring the collateral damage risks associated with jamming, kinetic and other common mitigation solutions.
As a more nuanced solution, a cyber approach processes data from radio frequency (RF) communications and controls the drone and directs it away from controlled airspace. This is a viable solution for many settings, and it should be considered now as it provides the ability to detect an unauthorized drone instantly with no line-of-sight access.
The risk of a false positive is virtually eliminated by the capability to understand the control communications of a drone. Authorized drones will not be affected by an RF-cyber counter-UAS system and an intruding drone can be instantly characterized as unauthorized.
RF cyber-based counter-UAS solutions appear to have better potential to evolve with the advances of small commercial and private drone technology. In extreme situations, technologies such as EnforceAir from D-Fend Solutions, which was deployed, for example, to protect the Pope at an open-air mass in December 2021, must be effective in the increasingly crowded, noisy and dense air operations and communications environments.
Undoubtedly, kinetic and jamming solutions will evolve, but one should anticipate that RF-cyber counter-drone technology will be preferred in many environments, and thus will continue to evolve as well. The ability to pick an unauthorized drone out of congested airspace; the ability to sustain control over the rogue drone; and the ability to ensure that the system is used only in the intended manner, are all metrics important to the future of airspace safety.
A question is sometimes raised about the ability of a counter-drone system to gauge the “intent” of a drone. Relying on interpretation of a radar signature or flight profile would almost certainly incur a higher possibility of error, complicating a decision to “mitigate,” which can only be taken after a drone has been characterized as a hazard or threat. One can readily see that restricted airspace will be safest under a system that pre-authorizes drones, and then mitigating any whose profile — like a digital airline boarding pass — is not in the system.
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From a policymaker’s perspective, every line of counter-UAS research and development should be advanced, but due to the inherent limits of kinetic, net-capture or jamming systems in congested civil airspace, there is a solid rationale for prioritizing safe, secure and controlled RF cyber-based counter-UAS technology as decision makers consider future standards. It is proven, non-hazardous and in use now as a method most likely to sustain the level of modernization necessary to keep pace with commercial drone threats in the years ahead.
Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. is former assistant secretary of State for political-military affairs.
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