If they pay me £20m, and supply me with a shotgun and cartridges, I'll happily take on the job of anti-drone officer.
Brit military wants a small-drone-killer system for £20m
Fresh from showing off its gotta-zap-'em-all Dragonfire laser cannon, the Ministry of Defence is now buying a £20m anti-drone system. The "urgent" requirement from the MoD was issued last week, and could be linked to the mischievous Scot who landed his hobby drone aboard aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in August. "The …
COMMENTS
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:25 GMT Voland's right hand
For that amount of money, I can pocket 10M, pay 500K for Boris folly sitting in the garage somewhere around London (the second hand German water cannons) and rig it on a 360 degree mount with laser/visual targeting. In fact, more like pocketing 15 mil - I do not see how you will need more than a couple of mil on the prototype. Even with QuinetiQ markup.
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:12 GMT Voland's right hand
RF jamming
2-120kg is more than sufficient to fit an Rasperry or Arduino based autopilot. In fact, the computing power a drone can carry nowdays is perfectly fit for the purpose of targeting and homing in on the CIWS.
So jamming helps only against people taking the piss. It will not stop people taking a couple of kg of high explosive instead.
The real solution here is neither shooting, nor laser, nor jamming - they have the issue of range. Their range is too good so you cannot use them close to the shore and in-port.
The real solution, however is all around a ship all the time. It is called water. I have yet to see a 2-120kg drone which is capable of surviving a mining grade (not the wimpy ones used by the police) watercannon. Range is also perfectly appropriate - > 100 meters on specialized versions so a bow and aft mounts can cover even a ship the size of Queen Lizzy.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdt9WctqK4o
Anyone with a drone capable of surviving this, please come forward.
There is an existing cheap and shipping (with a sizeable install base) navalized version: http://piratesafe.com/
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:10 GMT kmac499
A neighbour of mine was the Chief engineer on a naval ship during the Cod War (UK vs Iceland back in the 70's) They rigged up water and air hoses (air fed from the engines starter system) linked to a rotary valve and nozzle. Hand cranking the valve fired 'bullets' of water about two feet long with a few hundred psi behind 'em. They used it gattling gun style to play along the thin hulls of the icelandic fisheries vessels as they tried to cut up the RN ships. Made a helluva noise apparently.
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Monday 25th September 2017 18:19 GMT handleoclast
Re: water cannon
The only problem I can see with this is there's a maximum height it can reach. So fly the drone above that and drop IEDs. Yeah, targeting accuracy of the IED might be very low when dropped from that height, but the drone can always go back to pick up more.
Well, the other problem is that it only works on ships, and the bad guys are using IEDs mainly over land at the moment.
Apart from those problems, great idea. :)
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ah if only life were simple - drones, kind of by their nature, often can fly pre-programmed missions. And an evil.corp 2000 drone will automatically home in on the 'loudest' radio signal if it loses comms, before plonking it self down and letting off a rude raspberry (other flavours of nastiness are user specified options).
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:08 GMT Lee D
Why would you think they would be radio-controlled?
It wouldn't be infeasible, now, today, as an "art project", to spend £50k, get a warehouse full of them, strap something on the bottom, modify them to fly to preset locations and rip out their radios, drive 10,000 miles out of the way, wait three months to ensure you're home and dry and out of suspicion, and then dial the magic number or set the magic bit on an onion address, that causes them to be powered up, float off through the roof and all attack a different target, or all home in on the same target.
Taking them out would literally require an EMP that knocks out all kinds of things, and you'd never know if you got them all.
With a bit of onboard coding, a solar panel and an Arduino, you could program them to all run off, sit on a random roof for a few weeks and then form a co-ordinated attack at the same time anywhere in the world. Stopping, charging, and then carrying on if they get slowed up or take heavy losses early.
The danger in these things is actually predicted by the mischief that could be caused in the hands of a crop-circle-maker, protestor, artist, or even just kids playing games.
At no point, once powered up, do they need radio to do that job. Even with deliberate GPS takedown (in a matter of hours? Yeah, right), there's nothing stopping them triangulating from cheap 3G sticks which will give you position to a couple of hundred meters on their own, let alone in tandem.
To be honest, the threat of a hostile drone swarm, even from another country, is scary. They could be sitting for years, building up, lying in fields, flying off if anything comes near, and then making a coordinated and almost indefensible attack using any payload they can carry. Even the military were looking at drones that could sit on powerlines and charge up, etc. but a determined hacker with a thousand identical drones which can carry even the smallest of payloads could cause a nuisance and a news story at least, commit terrorism, or prompt a military response if they did it right.
Seriously, there are drones out there with ranges of 7km and flight times in the hours. They ain't cheap but a year ago they didn't exist. Next year, you'll hear of some enthusiast flying them near Heathrow, the year after that they will be in your toy shops.
And if ever there was a tool that it's difficult to determine the source of, especially if you don't use radio, surely that's gotta be one. How many people are arrested when their drones buzz Heathrow, football stadiums, even the Empire State Building? Almost none, because nobody knows who was flying them.
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Monday 25th September 2017 12:57 GMT Salestard
Flock of Gulls
I'll take the £20m and deliver a Flock of Gulls (no, not the prog rock band) trained to associate the top of drones with food using the magic of Pavlovian conditioning.
Gulls, Herring, Anti-Drone, Number 1, Mark 1.
My logic is undeniable; they're smart enough to train, dumb enough to condition. There's bloody faaasands of 'em just knocking about round RN facilities. They're aggressive buggers, and surprisingly large. I only need to train the first generation, and maintain their interest by occasionally sending up a food drone to keep up the pretence.
Then I can sub-licence to BAe, who can then charge the gubbermint a bazillion pounds to upgrade to Mark 2, which will be thirty two years late, 450% of budget, and be a confused otter strapped to the underside of a crow.
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Monday 25th September 2017 18:48 GMT JamesPond
Re: Flock of Gulls
Sorry, you have the incorrect monetisation plan here. As per F35 and all other BAe projects, the money is in the servicing/ maintenance side, not the development and build. Given reducing fish stocks, I don't think £10 per day per gull would be over-the-top. How many gulls per ship do you need? I'd say at least 100 to cover multiple swarm attacks, for each of the 77 ships of the RN, that's only £28m per year, excluding training and human support costs. What can you get these days for £28m to defend the whole fleet?
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:22 GMT Dwarf
Seek and destroy - build a better drone that is given a target and just homes in on it to take it out.
Could even go retro and go for the Maximilian character from The Black Hole
And for bonus points, make the same thing work on those Asian Hornets !!
I've not worked out yet how to overcome the fact that the target drone is only 50ft from the nearest plane, but that's another issue.
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:38 GMT Arachnoid
Target recognition
Its not so much knocking the device down thats going to be hard as you can launch tangle netting or a solid or liquid object once its in range.The difficulty is target recognition on such a small scale object in a variety of weathers and light conditions, given the airspace may also be full of wildlife.
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Monday 25th September 2017 13:42 GMT Mr Sceptical
Surely microwaves?
Just need a bloody powerful, not particularly accurate microwave array.
Point in general drone direction, whack up power to 'roast swan' level and watch the drone flip out/short circuit/turn into firework display - at the distance they'd become a threat to a warship, should easily be in range.
Could you retask some of the comms gear for this function?
Icon for drones too!
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:43 GMT Robin Bradshaw
Re: Surely microwaves?
The raving idiots from the ukranian youtube channel Kreosan have a small scale demo of this with their staggeringly mindboggelingly dangerous magnetron on a stick:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIU8WZR9DNA
Kind of interesting to see but it made me wince even though im 2000 miles away at the other end of an internet connection.
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Monday 25th September 2017 15:29 GMT Pedigree-Pete
Re: Raspberry @ Lee D
Ah! The Phantom is brought back to mind. RIP Ronnies. PP
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwij8KL70sDWAhVEZVAKHeDpAn4QtwIILDAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOwaEPTSRcSw&usg=AFQjCNG_8arE6dtsacNn9I7tUIjicRiFLQ
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:09 GMT Haku
Bionic dogs.
I've witnessed enough dogs barking & chasing drones to realise there's potential there, we just need to find those dogs that like chasing them and give them bionic upgrades - mechanical legs that are able to run at 50 mph and jump small buildings, titanium jaws & teeth and a sonic bark that knocks out electronics.
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:19 GMT B*stardTintedGlasses
Re: Bionic dogs.
Similar to the "Rat-things" from Snow Crash?
Good Doggy....
http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Rat_Things_(Snow_Crash)
"Rat Things are specially engineered American Pit Bull Terrier clones, with genetic and biological modifications designed to optimize their strength, endurance, agility, reflexes, and aggression. As a result, they are larger than normal Pit Bulls, being closer in size to a Rottweiler."
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:23 GMT Duncan Macdonald
Counter counter measures
If you are Mr Evil Guy with a drone with a nasty payload wanting to get it through an anti-drone defense system then sending a group of decoy drones at the same time as the nasty one could greatly increase the chance of the payload hitting its target. Basic drones cost under £1k each so expending a few to get the payload to its target could be cost effective. It also requires the defender to spend much more money for a more capable defense system for each target that needs defending.
The water cannon defense has severe limitations - a hostile drone can fly at 1000ft AGL, come to a hover over the target (still at 1000ft AGL) and drop its payload without coming within range of a water cannon.
Drones could also be programmed to fly evasive maneuvers near the target to make it more difficult for the anti-drone defenses.
Drones (like IEDs) make the defender expend far more money and effort than the attacker and for the same reason - the defender does not know where the next attack will be.
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Monday 25th September 2017 14:36 GMT Arachnoid
Drone spped
We are not just talking about those slow blade spinning droids much loved by nerds but high speed,jet powered devices too.
As for many of the "weapons" offered as solutions so far, just remember many of the areas under defense will be in civilian populated areas during peace time.
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