America Begins Airport Tests of Technology To Detect Drones and 'Mitigate Potential Safety Risks Posed' (engadget.com) 36
To address the possibility of drone-flying near airports, America's Federal Aviation Administration "will be testing at least 10 technologies and systems," reports Engadget, "developed not just to detect unmanned aerial systems, but also to mitigate the potential safety risks they pose."
The first tests will be conducted at FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center, which is right next to the Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey. After that, the agency expects to expand its tests to four additional airports in the U.S. It has yet to choose those airports, and it may also still be finalizing the list of technologies it's testing: The FAA is asking interested companies working on drone detection systems to respond to its announcement within 45 days.
Maybe audio detection would work (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems hard in lots of ways to detect drones. One way that maybe seems better than others, is using audio detection since drones all seem to still be fairly loud... if you had a lot of audio sensors around, it seems like you could get a pretty good fix on where a drone was, and even have good early warning if you distributed the (fairly cheap) audio sensors in a wide enough range around the area.
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If they can get that loudspeaker on the airport tarmac.
To what end the trolling (Score:1)
Your solution is EASILY trolled by someone with a loudspeaker.
I know you are just trolling for lols, but seriously - why is that a problem? So what if the system detects something and they send out someone to check it out? How often is that realistically going to happen.
Also I don't think it's quite as easy to spoof as you think. Lets say they drive around with speakers just outside the airport fence. Why would the multiple listening microphones not pin-point that sound as ground based instead of aerial
Re: Maybe audio detection would work (Score:2)
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birds of prey have proven to be quite effective at this.
My other thought was in fact eagles with adamantium replacement talons and beak... :-)
Would birds of prey work well around an active airport though? I thought maybe it would be adding more risk than it addressed.
Re: Maybe audio detection would work (Score:2)
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Consumer level drones are made out of plastic, no iron man gear is required...it just hasn't really been an issue so far.
You have to skate to where the puck is though, I can see more advanced drones real concern sooner rather than later...
But yeah, a normal eagle will probably mess up just about any drone today, even the more advanced ones.
Re:Maybe audio detection would work (Score:4, Informative)
"drones all seem to be fairly loud"? Really?
A friend brought his DJI Mavic to my house a couple days ago. We're near an airport, so we couldn't go higher than 180 ft per the FAA. So we kept it below 100 feet, and I never went farther away than my driveway. At that range - 200 ft lateral, 100 ft high - and in a very quiet rural neighborhood, I could barely hear it. Add a normal volume at any airport, due to planes idling on the taxiway, taking off and landing... you really can't hear those drones at all.
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we couldn't go higher than 180 ft per the FAA. So we kept it below 100 feet, and I never went farther away than my driveway. At that range - 200 ft lateral, 100 ft high - and in a very quiet rural neighborhood, I could barely hear it
Aha, but you COULD hear it. Not add a very powerful microphone filtering out noise not in a specific frequency range, and I think you could get a surprising distance where a microphone could pick up the signature of drone propellers.
That said I do think it would require a lot o
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It is not that hard if you reduce the amount of sky you are searching. So you want to do is create a detection fence around the airport that only searches the sky directly above the fence, to an altitude to exclude the presence of drones and to sufficient detail to differentiate between birds and drones and blown rubbish. So two tasks, one task the detection of any object passing over the fence and the second, defining what the object or objects are. The next task eliminating the object, technically drone,
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So you want to do is create a detection fence around the airport that only searches the sky directly above the fence,
That does reduce the complexity, but I would argue that detection when something at the fence is pretty late in the game, any amount of time detecting a drone beforehand is of great value.
Also, although a detection fence lets you know where a drone crosses into the area, it says nothing about where that drone goes after it crosses, they way an audio detection system does. Which also helps wi
Which American? (Score:2)
Grammar aint herd.
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2. And because making things "illegal" always works. See - Drugs, murder, speeding, etc.
MANY Problems with drones (Score:2)
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FYI, the FAA is already in process of making new rules that could potentially make flying any existing or homebuilt RC aircraft over 250 grams illegal, except when done within an AMA club field. And they appear to want to phase out the club field exception in time. So basically, if the the new rules go forward as written, and the consensus interpretation is correct, eventually the only RC aircraft (over 250g) you will be able to fly will be ones that are sold new, RTF, including transmitter. This is beca
New FAA rules (Score:2)
U.S. Department of Transportation Issues Proposed Rule on Remote ID for Drones [faa.gov] "The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a proposed rule that would continue the safe integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), commonly called drones, into the nation's airspace by requiring them to be identifiable remotely."
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little or no technical ability
The threats they are everywhere, we should make everything with little or no technical ability illegal.
If you have no training to fly a plane, flying a plane is illegal.
If you have no training to drive a car, driving the car is illegal.
If you can't ride a bike, taking that bike onto the street is illegal.
If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time, gum is illegal. (Making walking illegal would be silly)
If you are a virgin, well more bad news. Losing that would be illegal.
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The first two are already true almost everywhere.
Riding a bike on public roads without appropriate training *should* be illegal too, there are many bike riders out there who are totally unaware of road rules and often cause a danger to pedestrians and other traffic.
Some countries already make gum illegal.
Some countries already require that you hold a marriage license before you can lose your virginity.
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Ask the managers of your town or city to make drones illegal.
A great way to find out if your elected leaders have a clue, but completely unproductive if your intention is to voice your negative opinion on drones. Because if your local leadership has functional brain cells, they'll politely inform you the national airspace is under the FAA's jurisdiction, not theirs.
Drones cannot violate local laws. (Score:2)
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The catch is, local governments generally don't have carte blanche to declare all drone flights to be illegal. A hypothetical Amazon delivery drone likely isn't violating any privacy laws, and if it's operating in compliance with noise ordinances (which usually allow machinery to operate during daylight hours, otherwise construction and yard maintenance would be illegal), a local municipality can't just ban 'em because they don't like them.
While some folks have made a huge stink about privacy concerns rega
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They can't forbid you from flying over the city park, but they can make it illegal to stand on city park ground while flying.
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I'm assuming the OP is one of those crotchety folks who can't stand the neighbor kids flying their Mavic Minis over their neighborhood. There's absolutely nothing bitching to the local powers that be can do about that, because if you're standing on your own property while holding the remote, it's only the FAA who has final say whether or not your toy is allowed to take to the air.
Yeah, public parks can ban the operation of remote craft the same way they can ban boom boxes and alcoholic beverages. But you'
Mitigation? (Score:3)
I'm curious about that.
Detection is one thing but I'm not sure how that'll work out - do you halt all air traffic when a drone is in the area? For how long? What if it keeps flying around?
That, of course, is where mitigation comes in but what do you do? Radio jamming? I'm all for the mini-anti-aircraft guns myself but that's got its own risks. Counter drones with weaponry? (We'll have to destroy them ship to ship!)
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I'm curious about that.
Detection is one thing but I'm not sure how that'll work out - do you halt all air traffic when a drone is in the area? For how long? What if it keeps flying around?
That, of course, is where mitigation comes in but what do you do? Radio jamming? I'm all for the mini-anti-aircraft guns myself but that's got its own risks. Counter drones with weaponry? (We'll have to destroy them ship to ship!)
Train some hawks and eagles to take out drones. It usually works for bird control around airports.
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That, of course, is where mitigation comes in but what do you do?
Guys with guns pay a visit to the pilot. They're not looking to crash someone's toy, they're interested in making arrests.
Problem solved (Score:3)
I think the problem has already been solved... Airports are closed and flights are cancelled, so drones no longer pose any risk at all.