U.S. seeking technologies against drones

U.S. seeking technologies against drones

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Dec. 17 airpower summary: Reapers touch enemy forcesFor years the United States has been one of the leading countries in the field of using armed drones and dedicated a lot of its research and development funds for that purpose. As time passed, the rivals the U.S. was up against evolved technologically and began to use these means as well, which brought on a need to develop defense capapbilities in face of enemy UAVs. The project of researching ways of defending against aerial platforms is completely secret but the Baltimore Sun reports, after investigating and going through budget papers and related contracts, that the United States is in the thick of research and is examining several options to dealing with the subject, from machine-guns to advanced laser weapons.

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The need to develop a defense system to cope with UAVs is rising even more lately. An example is a video that’s connected to the radical Islam movement, ISIS, which shows images taken by UAVs above battlefields. Furthermore, all around the world more than 80 countries are using this vehicle, including countried considered hostile to the U.S. such as China and Iran. It’s not inevitable that at least some of these countries have armed their UAVs with assault weapons. The world of unmanned aerial vehicles is getting to be more accessible to anyone who wants to make use of it: nowadays you can purchase through Amazon an UAV equipped with a go-pro camera for only $410.

In order to cope with enemies’ UAVs flying possibilities, the U.S. has started a defense method made up of several stages and called “kill chain”: First the object must be detected during flight, then it is followed to make sure it is an enemy’s vehicle and then it is shot down. In order to develop the means for each stage, different persons are working to find technological solutions. For detection, one can use radars but the problem with it is that there can be errors in distinguishing between birds and mini-UAVs. To overcome this problem, one of the teams labouring on this project is suggesting to combine the radar with different sensors and cameras. Another method for identification is based on pinpointing the noise produced from the vehicle as it flies.

For the third stage in the “kill chain” several options are considered, though economical cost must be considered and so interception with anti-aircraft missile is out of the question. Another option examined is the use of laser which has already successfully passed an interception experiment in 2013. More ways which are being tested are based on the ability to block the operator’s ability to communicate with the vehicle or take over it during flight via cyber attack – a possibility which was successfully experimented with last year.