Counter-Drone Solutions Why Should We Care?

who may or may not hover in the sky with their own UAVs just because they want to post a 'cool' story on Instagram

The rapid advancement in drone technology has led to an increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in various applications, including emergency response. While drones have proved to be beneficial to first responders - providing eyes on a scene prior to the arrival of ground units - as well as in search and rescue, firefighting, and other emergency operations, they also pose significant risks to first responders and the public.

As this Saint Leo poll finds, nearly threequarters (72%) of people polled think that drones are great for use by local police forces. While that may sound like good news, don't be mistaken - initiating a drone program is not an easy task for most agencies. The devil is in the details.

Challenges faced by first responder teams when using drones

There are many challenges first responder teams face when using drones. In growing order of difficulty, we can list:

- The requirement to obtain a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) to fly and operate drones.

- The much-needed training about the best way to manage drones before, during, and after deployment.

- The privacy concerns the general public has with drones.

Although the above challenges are all relevant, they are not the focus of this specific paper. In this article, we will discuss a much more painful challenge - which assumes that all the above difficulties have been overcome, and yet can put live operations to a halt. The challenge we'd like to talk about is the difficulty to manage the traffic of multiple drones above a restricted area and the conflicts of interest that can emerge in emergency situations between authorized drone operators and unauthorized drone owners.

First responder live operations often face a lack of orchestration between the different parties that typically attend emergency sites:

- The different teams of first responders themselves

- Journalists and reporters who - rightfully from their perspective - want to cover the sensational item and bring their media drones to capture high-quality footage

- And sometimes crowds of curious people

The uncontrolled and unauthorized use of commercial drones in restricted airspace can cause disruptions and delay operations, jeopardize the safety of first responders and the public by flying in close proximity to them - endangering their lives - and compromise the privacy of individuals. That's why the Standard Operating Procedure is to pause any live operation, the second an unauthorized drone has been detected. This raises an additional difficulty faced by first responders in such situations: detecting drones, especially in night-time conditions and beyond visual line of sight, which can make it challenging to identify the drones and their operators. The inability to detect and defeat the threats caused by drones in real time can also lead to delays in responding to emergencies, putting the safety of first responders and the public at risk.

So why does it remain so difficult to deal with drones in 2023? There are 4 main reasons behind this challenge:

• Firstly, the global commercial drone market is exploding. According to the Grand View Research Commercial Drone Market Size & Share Report, 2021-2028, it was valued at USD 13.44 billion in 2020 and it is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57.5% from 2021 to 2028. Their usage is proliferating in many industries but also among criminals with malicious intentions and a mainstream public simply unaware of the restrictions and rules around drone flying.

• Secondly, it sounds obvious, but an additional difficulty lies in the fact that drones are small. It is therefore more difficult to see them and more complex to neutralize them.

• A third difficulty is that drones fly at a low altitude. Hence one can't afford to 'simply' take them down - especially in urban or dense areas - as it could potentially cause physical damage and casualties.

• Lastly, drones use the same communication frequency as we all do. That's why "confusing" drones about their location or jamming their communication signals, are obviously not valid options for first responder operations as they also disrupt all the GPS, telecommunications or Wi-Fi signals in the surroundings.

Why aren't counter-drone systems more widely used by first responders?

The use of counter-UAV systems can help address the challenges faced by first responders during drone operations, especially - but not only - during night-time or when there's no line of sight. They can also be the ideal solution for providing a picture of what's going on in the sky: what drones are flying in a defined perimeter, where and at what altitude are they flying, Etc.

The lack of usage of counter-drone technologies by first-response teams probably comes from the fact that for quite some time, counter-drone solutions could be bucketed into 2 main categories:

- Solutions that detect, track and identify drones

- Solutions that focus on neutralizing them, more or less violently

Each bucket - if they didn't regularly fail - potentially solved only one part of the equation and therefore it meant more than one technology was needed in order to meet the entirety of first responders' operational needs. Additionally, traditional counter-drone solutions can be heavy and complex to operate; and they often require skills that are missing in a first responders' squad.

But counter-drone systems have evolved and have become extremely relevant to live operations. In recent years, new technologies have emerged and matured, which now offer more integrated solutions. They can detect and identify unauthorized commercial drones, track multiple drones simultaneously and locate their remote controls, but also safely override them and land them in a predefined zone, or send them back to their home locationthereby reducing the risks associated with uncontrolled drone usage.

This is an important point to remember as only integrated solutions can truly meet first responders' operational needs end-toend and in real time.

A new generation of integrated counter-drone technologies

The most advanced of these solutions are entirely autonomous and require minimum training to be operated. They are lightweight, can be deployed in a matter of minutes, or even mounted on a vehicle, thus always "ready to go" when an emergency occurs. This also means they can protect either a permanent or temporary perimeter, a protest march, or a convoy.

Not less importantly, unlike traditional C-UAV mitigation technologies that involve jamming(1) or spoofing(2), those more advanced anti-UAV solutions are safe for any environment. And by that, we don't mean that they don't impact climate change (although true!) But rather that they are suitable for open as well as urban environments:

- They create no interference with other means of communication and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). This is key, as we know how crucial communication and coordination between different members of a crew are, in a firstresponse situation.

- They enable the standard usage of firstresponder drones during live operations as they do not impact authorized drones. This means that the serial numbers of authorized drones can be listed in the C-UAV software and they will be 'ignored' and allowed to operate normally, while unauthorized drones will be detected, tracked and mitigated.

- They allow for safe mitigation by disconnecting the drone's communication with its remote control, flying the drone to a safe altitude, and either sending it back to its 'Home' as originally configured by the owner or safely landing it in a predefined zone which enables the crew to easily collect it.

In summary, integrated counter-drone solutions provide first responders with the ability to keep operating their own drones, while enabling them to identify the location of unauthorized drones in real-time, and safely land them. By doing so, they ensure that first-responder teams can quickly respond to emergencies without drone disruption.

When searching for and looking to procure counter-drone technologies, first responders should have in mind the below criteria:

- An integrated counter-drone solution

- A reliable and accurate UAS picture

- Safety for the environment

- A low total cost of ownership

- Suitability for all operational needs

This article is the first in a series of 3 articles. In our next edition, we will review in detail the main Counter-drone available technologies on the market today.

(1) Jamming in wireless networks is defined as the disruption of existing wireless communications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio at receiver sides through the transmission of interfering wireless signals.

(2) GPS Spoofing happens when someone uses a radio transmitter to send a counterfeit GPS signal to a receiver antenna to counter a legitimate GPS satellite signal. Spoofing can apply to emails, phone calls, and websites, or can be more technical, such as a computer spoofing an IP address, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Domain Name System (DNS) server or GNSS Signal Spoofing.

Sources:

-Polling Institute - Saint Leo University, https://polls.saintleo.edu/saint-leo-pollfinds-as-the-public-learns-more-aboutdrones-opinions-split-on-the-best-civilianuses/

- Grand View Research Inc. - Commercial Drone Market Size & Share Report, 20212028

- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/ industry-analysis/global-commercialdrones-market