Airbus Developing Anti-UAV To Locate Infiltration

Airbus Developing Anti-UAV To Locate Infiltration

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Remember the signs surrounding military bases stating “military area, no pictures”? You probably already guessed that not everyone follows the rules and UAVs are actually to first to break the rule. Due to the great importance of this safety issue, Airbus, the European aerospace manufacturer, has developed an anti-UAV system meant to detect illegal infiltrations into the aerial territory above critical areas. Furthermore, the company even offers electronic counter-means, meant to minimize collateral damage (both to human lives and property) from activating the system.

Security incidents all around the world, where small drones available everywhere enter some sensitive aerial territory, have revealed a security gap in critical infrastructures such as military fields, airports or nuclear reactors, said Thomas Müller, head of the electronics business line at Airbus Defense and Space. “We have all the technologies in our portfolio and the integration knowledge which are needed to set up a quick-response protection system with extremely low false alarm rates,” he said.

The system offers effectiveness by combining sensor data from different sources with latest data fusion, signal analysis and jamming technologies. It uses operational radars, infrared cameras and direction finders from Airbus’ portfolio to identify the drone and assess its threat potential at ranges between five and 10 kilometers. Based on an extensive threat library and real time analysis of control signals a jammer then interrupts the link between drone and pilot and/or its navigation.

Furthermore, the direction finder tracks the position of the pilot who subsequently can be arrested. Due to the Smart Responsive Jamming Technology developed by Airbus, the jamming signals are blocking only the relevant frequencies used to operate the drone while other frequencies in the vicinity remain operational. Since the jamming technology contains versatile receiving and transmitting capabilities, more sophisticated measures like remote control classification and GPS spoofing can be utilized as well.

We mustn’t forget that UAVs today aren’t just capable of reconnaissance and spying, but they also have various attack capabilities. It seems that the signs hanging on military fences are in need of some improvement and installing this sort of system on the fences will surely advance a solution to the security issues.

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