When Radio Jamming Doesn’t Work, Kinetic Collisions Will

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We have already mentioned in the past several novel and innovative ways of drone jamming and interception. From rifle shaped radio jammers to giant nets, as drone technologies become more prevalent, then it is inevitable that anti-drone technologies will become more prevalent as well.

Anti-drone technologies are either electromagnetic (jammers) or kinetic. Sometimes signal jamming is not enough to bring down a rogue drone. When this situation occurs, it becomes time to utilize the kinetic solution.

AerialX’s kinetic solution towards the problem of rogue, and possibly hostile, drones is the DroneBullet. The DroneBullet is a rocket shaped quadcopter that relies on physical interception with the target by crashing into it. The hardened structure of the intercepting drone allows it to crash into other flying objects and still manage to land upright on the ground.

The DroneBullet utilizes visual processing and deep learning so that it can track targets and plan an interception route.

The DroneBullet is by no means the first kinetic drone interceptor of its type. C4isrnet.com reports that in April, a Russian team released a video also showing a rocket shaped drone intercepting a quadcopter. In 2015, a French company programmed a collision course into a standard commercial quadcopter and they demonstrated how the quadcopter can knock out a larger drone from the sky.

With all the new sophisticated methods of electromagnetic jamming, GPS blocking, and hijacking drones, sometimes the best solution to rogue drones is the low-tech solution of just crashing into it.