Written evidence submitted by Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd. (RDU0132)
This submission provides domain-expert knowledge in the areas of available anti-drone systems, the effectiveness of these systems and some of the legal and practical use issues. Opinion is also given on the ‘Drone bill’ and for the planned UK drone registration scheme.
This submission is from Mark Radford, Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for and on behalf of Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd. an SME company based near Cambridge, UK.
I am a radar engineer with 35 years’ experience in the military and civil markets. I founded Blighter Surveillance Systems a privately-owned UK SME company in 2003. We have sold 500 radar units to 35 countries for border and perimeter security. In the past 5 years we have enhanced our radars to detect drones. We consider ourselves to be the market leader in radar-based drone detection resulting from three years of ongoing sales to US DoD. In 2014 I developed the AUDS (Anti-UAV Defence System) which integrates ours and other UK SME products to provide a complete ‘Detect, Track, Defeat’ anti-drone capability. The AUDS system is deployed at some major UK airports.
I have provided this submission to ensure that a knowledge-based view of the anti-drone market is available to the committee. This is based on 4 years’ worth of international trials and demonstrations of the AUDS anti-drone system in over 20 countries around the world, and feedback from field deployment of the AUDS system in warfighting zones.
No Comment
2.2.1 Built-in drone safety features should address the casual/careless/clueless drone user, but realistically could not prevent planned malicious and criminal use.
2.2.2 Geo-fencing is an available technology to prevent casual drone access to Critical National Infrastructure. The technology is highly effective in that it prevents commercially sold drones from entering or being flown within critical airspace. However Geo-fencing technology is easy to hack in multiple ways including covering or disconnecting the GPS navigation antenna that sits on top the drone. Geo-fencing is an almost zero cost feature that, quite rightly, is now mandated in drones being supplied into the EU. It is worth noting that the database of protected areas can sometimes disclose sensitive sites that would otherwise go unnoticed.
2.2.3 On-board location tracking & Identification devices could be fitted but there is a lack of standards, cost could be restrictive to consumers and add-on technology like this can be readily hacked. Commercial manned aircraft are fitted with a long-range remote tracking technology called ADSB. This is too expensive, power consuming, heavy and bulky for consumer drones. It is likely that drone tracking technology will evolve to be significantly different to ADSB due to the factors above and the inevitable higher density of drones operating closer together, which would probably overload the existing ADSB system. 5G telecommunications networks would seem to offer a practical communications route for future consumer drone tracking and identification systems as well as providing a mechanism for multiple drone coordination; route management, collision avoidance etc.
2.2.4 It is worth noting that in-built self-protection features in common hobby drones are designed to prevent accidental loss of the drone. Such safety features include auto-land when battery level is low, and return-to-home when communication is lost. It is our experience that most good quality consumer drones implement these features reliably but there are many cheap, hence highly available, and also larger so called pro-sumer drones (Bridging the professional-consumer market) that are not adequately engineered and fail to reliably implement some of these basic features. Many counter-drone system exploit the well implemented ‘safety features’ to effect control. i.e. land or return home.
2.2.5 It is notable that the tracking and identification systems above all rely on using or interacting with radio communications systems, including satellite navigation (GPS, or more correctly GNSS). It is entirely possible that future drones; consumer, commercial and even terrorist-customised, will be able to fly autonomously without use of wireless communications systems. Position and direction is achieved by using Inertial Navigation, such technology being commonly used in modern smart phones. It is most likely that future drones of all types will be fitted with INUs (Inertial Navigation Units) as a safety feature, allowing drones to continue in flight in the absence of any communications. However this capability does allow drones to be operated stealthily without requiring or emitting any radio signals.
2.3.1 There is effective anti-drone technology available on the market, but it often requires multiple highly trained/skilled operators. Such technology is available from British companies and is more typically being used by military organisations.
2.3.2 There are potentially many tens of ‘tactical’ class anti-drone systems on the market, including for example, net guns, hand held jammers, shot-guns, ‘hunter-drones’, etc. etc., and even birds of prey, but most are immature due to the nascent nature of the anti-drone market. Furthermore, in almost all instances anti-drone products are illegal to use, or un-licensable. The use of some anti-drone systems present additional safety risks, for example a shotgun would be unsafe if fired into the air in an urban airport environment, and a non-directional radio jamming system could disrupt nearby electronic systems. There are a smaller number of available ‘strategic’ grade anti-drone systems. These typically combine multiple sensors and effectors to provide a complete detect–track–identify–defeat capability. These strategic systems are often provided by consortia of companies or ‘Prime’ system integration companies. They tend to adopt proven military grade technology and are therefore more mature and capable than the tactical systems.
2.3.3 From experience gained through military deployment, the most effective anti-drone systems can be produced by layering multiple systems, using long range systems to provide early detection and defeat, and further inner layers using other technologies to provide alternative detection and defeat capabilities. This of course is expensive and currently beyond the reasonable cost expectations of most airport owners and other CNI security managers.
2.3.4 Many airports and other CNI sites have in recent years invested in cheap and basic, tactical, anti-drone technologies only to find that they are illegal to use or totally ineffective in real operational environments. The only effective solutions currently are military-grade strategic anti-drone systems and even they require optimisation and augmentation for civilian use. For example an airport environment full of large square sided buildings and hundreds of moving objects; aircraft, trucks, baggage trolleys, cars etc. is hugely different to a desert or remote war-fighting environment.
2.3.5 In order to defeat a drone, one must know that it is there. On a quiet day in a park it is easy to hear the buzz of a drone, but in an urban or industrial area, a drone can operate metres above one’s head without being noticed. Once the drone is detected and being observed, then counter-measures can be applied, if required. In typical urban environments, including airports, the only effective drone detection systems rely on the electro-magnetic spectrum including light and radio waves. These detection systems include radar, radio detection and direction-finding equipment, cameras and thermal imaging sensors.
2.3.6 Radar is the most effective technology for rapidly surveilling a large volume of airspace for drones, whether or not they use wireless control or are fully autonomous. However radar has limitations in cluttered environments with large numbers of other moving objects and large buildings that reflect and scatter the radar signals. Often, a skilled operator is required to understand the radar picture.
2.3.7 Cameras and thermal imaging (heat detection) systems – termed electro-optic cameras - can also provide a detection capability. However the small size and distance travelled by consumer drones requires that these electro-optic cameras have long zoom capability, which dramatically reduces their view of the sky, as it were, trying to surveill the sky by looking through a straw. For this reason is it common to use electro-optic cameras to observe, track and identify the drones once detected and cued by other sensors.
2.3.8 The other class of radio related detection systems are Radio-Frequency (RF) detection and direction-finding systems. These systems actively search for the radio communications signature of consumer drones and if detected from multiple locations can triangulate and locate the source of the radio signal. The benefit of these systems is that they can potentially detect both the operator Radio Control Unit and the drone before take-off. This can give the earliest warning of a likely drone intrusion. However, this capability depends heavily on being able to recognise the individual radio signature of each type of drone. For ubiquitous drone types this is reliable, but for less common and next generation drones the signatures are often not recognised. It is also highly likely that as drones become more autonomous and less reliant on radio communication that the RF detection systems will become ineffective and obsolete.
2.3.9 Once a drone has been detected then multiple counter-measures are available on the market. These include:
a) Shotguns: Possibly reassuring as an asset but in reality completely ineffective against a moving drone. Requires a firearms licence and realistically cannot be used in urban areas.
b) Netguns and other net capture devices: The idea of using a net to entangle and capture a drone for forensic examination is good. Physically deploying a net to capture a moving drone at distance is currently ineffective. However, it can be a reassuring last-resort technique at short ranges. Netguns can be considered to be firearms and therefore subject to legal controls.
c) Radio Frequency (RF) Jamming systems. These operate by blocking the radio communication to and from the drone. For instance, different frequencies are typically used to send commands from the hand controller to the drone, and for video telemetry from drone to the user, and for the satellite navigation signal (GPS) from space to the drone. By overpowering the normal drone communications channels, the RF Jamming system denies the drone and/or the operator of flight information. By selective use of frequencies, the anti-drone operator can for instance; deny the drone operator access to the drone camera video downlink, or interact with the in-built safety features to force an immediate landing or return-to-home. Part of the problem with using RF jamming against drones is that they almost all used shared radio spectrum. It is common for drones to the use ubiquitous 2.4GHz Wifi band for the control channel, and the equally ubiquitous 5.8GHz Wifi band for video telemetry. Drones also use the worldwide GPS satellite navigations system (More correctly known as GNSS) for position awareness and this same system is used for commercial aircraft navigation, car/personal navigation, and it also provides critical high-precision time references for mobile phone towers and other important, though not safety critical, systems. The risks of RF jamming on other systems are poorly understood.
d) Hunter-drones which are ‘friendly’ drones equipped with anti-drone defeat or capture methods. There are a number of these systems that carry a net hanging below them with the aim of flying the hunter-drone towards the drone and entangling it allowing it to be forensically examined. Other hunter-drones deploy other methods including squirting glue/gunge at the other drone, or even just ramming into it. Theoretically hunter-drones could deploy compact jammers or other electronic attack systems using the proximity of the hunter-drone to enhance effectiveness. The hunter-drone capability is not well proven in operational scenarios and would be ineffective again swarm attack.
e) There are other anti-drone defeat systems being promoted, but they create such safety risks that realistically they will not be deployed in public areas for many years. Such systems include: High-power lasers to burn the drones in the sky, directed energy weapons, GPS spoofing (making the drone believe it is somewhere else by overriding the GPS signal), missiles and guns etc.
2.4.1 The UK has a strong military technology heritage and capability in radar and robust wireless communications, which it can exploit worldwide if supported by UK government. In addition to Military use, there is huge scope for conversion of military capability into future civil UTM (Unmanned-Air-System Traffic Management) and civil anti-drone markets.
2.5.1 Regulatory frameworks will probably mitigate the small risks from casual/careless/clueless drone users. Drones are easily hacked, customised or built ‘from scratch’ and there are few regulatory frameworks that would prevent such drones being produced for criminal or terrorist use.
2.5.2 Recent changes to airport ‘No Drone Flying Zones’ are only implemented on new legally bought drones and compatible older drones when updated by responsible hobbyists.
2.5.3 Too much regulation could prevent hobbyists and SMEs from innovating new commercially valuable drone related products and services.
2.6.1 Similar registration schemes in other countries, including the US, have been problematic and seemingly ineffective with low take-up. Law abiding and conscientious drone users will comply with this, leaving potentially a huge number of unregistered users, who are more likely to use their drones inappropriately and dangerously. A registration scheme certainly will not solve the problem of criminal or terrorist users who could find multiple ways of bypassing the registration scheme.
2.6.2 Realistically, public awareness and education, especially at schools, would be the best way of raising awareness of the potential safety issues relating to drones, and to the widest audience.
2.7.1 The drone safety public information films and information released during 2018 were a good first step in raising best-practise and responsible drone flying awareness for hobbyists.
2.7.2 It is not obvious that there has been a lot of drone safety research in the UK. There have been studies, limited to computer modelling, about the risk of damage from drones to aircraft.
2.7.3 During the past four years, our company has found a common problem relating to drone safety around the world. No-one actually knows what their specific problem is; they know that they probably have a ‘drone problem’ but they do not fully understand how drones can be used inappropriately or maliciously, how that mis-use may affect their domain, and furthermore they do not have knowledge how an anti-drone might have secondary effects on safety, e.g a radio jamming system may force a drone to crash on a busy motorway.
2.7.4 Maybe this nascent drone market is just too complex to understand presently, but an extensive safety matrix of use-cases, threats, counter-measures and effects might allow common safety themes to be observed, allowing focus for further study.
2.8.1 It is our observation that while there are many claims in the Press that individual countries or users are deploying certain counter-drone measures for protection of critical-national infrastructure (CNI), that in reality there is a lot of market-hype and mis-information about this. For the most-part everyone is watching and waiting.
2.8.2 The drone events at Gatwick airport during Dec. 2018 were fascinating for the level of international interest that they raised. As one of the key-players in the system that was eventually deployed at Gatwick, we were inundated with enquiries from international organisations interested in ‘the anti-drone system’ that the British government deployed. This demonstrated that other governments are yet to decide what their anti-drone/drone safety policies are. Gatwick is seen as an exemplary use case.
April 2019