UAS counter-drone system

As the number of unauthorized operations of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) is rising, the protection of public spaces, tourist areas, as well as publicly accessible critical infrastructures against malicious actions and terrorist attacks has become a major concern across the world. Currently, security measures in these so-called “soft targets” consist primarily of surveillance cameras and security personnel that safeguard these areas from threats. The introduction of drones in conjunction with software- defined-radios (SDRs), however, coupled with their diminishing costs and increasing capabilities, has become a game-changing threat to the protection of critical infrastructures and of citizens in public spaces. The ORION system aims to establish an autonomous counter-drone system that employs algorithms for detecting and tracking a rogue drone, in conjunction with wireless interception capabilities to jointly jam the rogue drone while achieving self-positioning for the pursuer drone. In the proposed system, SDR technology is used for RF detection, jamming transmission, and spectrum sweeping functionalities to achieve the desired detection, GPS disruption, and self-localization, respectively. Contrary to the high-cost anti-drone systems that are specifically designed for military purposes, the proposed anti-drone system is low-cost, and can jointly provide both jamming as well as self-localization capabilities. A proprietary integrated counter-drone system has been developed and a working prototype has been tested through extensive simulations and real-world field experiments under various settings, as described in detail below.