Amateur drone operators soon could face high-tech barriers

how is this legal?

communicating with the drone would violate DMCA

jamming would violate the FCC ruling on unlicensed public spectrum

interferring with an airborne craft would violate FAA rules i suspect?

All completely true, however, my guess is it's probably too difficult to catch whoever did it.
 
"We essentially trick the drone into thinking we're the user, and our product allows you to take control and safely land it".
F*** that!! You really think that someone that's peed off about someone flying over, or around a "geo fence" would just land it safely?
H*ll no! Their going to crash the drone just to "try" and teach the drone pilot a serious lesson.
And who the h*ll is going to train someone to land our drone?
Do you really think they'll care to listen? Nope!!
End rant..
In a personal note, I won't be flying over anyone's home or place of business cause that's just me.



Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots
 
"We essentially trick the drone into thinking we're the user, and our product allows you to take control and safely land it".
F*** that!! You really think that someone that's peed off about someone flying over, or around a "geo fence" would just land it safely?
H*ll no! Their going to crash the drone just to "try" and teach the drone pilot a serious lesson.
And who the h*ll is going to train someone to land our drone?
Do you really think they'll care to listen? Nope!!
End rant..
In a personal note, I won't be flying over anyone's home or place of business cause that's just me.



Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots


I agree, thats some SCARY stuff, not to mention violates tons of federal regulations.

This is the company designing the software and hardware: Department 13

I'm sure the FCC or FAA will come after them at some point.
 
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I agree, thats some SCARY stuff, not to mention violates tons of federal regulations.

This is the company designing the software and hardware: Department 13

I'm sure the FCC or FAA will come after them at some point.

Somehow I doubt it. They probably have some federal contract to jam drones with them now so the FCC will look away as will the FAA. I suspect CA Fire is working with them to keep drones away from forest fire areas and keeping fire-fighting planes grounded in California.

I heard about the Apple mysterious "fly-away" thing a couple of weeks ago at the hobby shop: "Just take over and fly it into the ocean or bay as if some accident." Since Apple has some relationship with DJI, most likely they have what they need to remote control one too if they want and seemingly are doing.

Wait until Amazon or some Rx drug outfits resort to using drones. Then it will get interesting if they remote-commandeer them. They could go off into some secure frequency spectrum too which seems likely, but hobbyists and amateur's drones not so much.

Or just do like the Danes do and send up some falcon or raptor to take them out for infringing on their airspace. Have some falconer set up a red-tailed hawk nesting area at a quasi-restricted area (i.e. Apple) and it might be a good watchman and capable of taking out a drone. Some seagulls too. No FCC or FAA action needed as 'Mother Nature' intervened.

Mack
 
I am pretty sure that there isn't a state in the union that discharging a firearm into the air over a populated area isn't illegal. Might want to contact the local police about people firing guns into the air. And God forbid, where is that bullet or shot coming down at? A bullet can kill just as easily coming down as it can leaving the barrel!
 
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Only thing I know (as a former airborne ELINT/SIGINT operator) is that we're going to need bigger motors if we're going to start attaching ECM and ECCM and ECCCM pods to our Phantoms.
 
Only thing I know (as a former airborne ELINT/SIGINT operator) is that we're going to need bigger motors if we're going to start attaching ECM and ECCM and ECCCM pods to our Phantoms.
Yep. Looking forward to buying that Predator on eBay!

Second Amendment and all that....
 
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I work as an armed security officer at a nuclear power station and I can tell you that drone flyovers have become a concern for us and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Drones can be used in a number of ways to jeopardize the security of our plants (surveillance and/or delivery of payloads, just to name two)

The NRC and FAA are currently working with other U. S. agencies (and other countries, esp. France and Britain) to come up with ways to combat this threat. They will, I am sure, craft rules and regulations that prohibit the flying of drones anywhere near sensitive nuclear facilities of any kind, but that will only keep out honest hobbyists and not terrorists and others intent on harming said facilities. So, what to do about those with malicious intent?

As a hobbyist flyer and someone with major concerns about restricted airspace, I welcome this technology. I do, however, think that this technology should be regulated tightly and authorized only to people and agencies with a definite need to possess and use it.

As for what type of control should be used against a drone invading the airspace of the place I am paid to protect, I believe that just as I am authorized to shoot and kill anyone who illegally gains entrance to our facility and tries to get past me and near a vital area or piece of equipment, the technology used should be able to destroy or disable the drone. (Although, gaining control of said aircraft might be better simply because then the recovery of the SD card or other recording device would be all but assured.)

Just my two cents...
 
Being new to this hobby, and my first drone being the P4, I was impressed that the software warns you if you are even near a no-fly zone, and that the software will not allow the drone to take off if you are in a no-fly zone (although I have not put this to the test). So the technology is there, at least in the P4. I agree that power plants, airports, and probably many government facilities that we do not know of should be classified as no-fly zones. And the P4 can only lift 2.5 pounds. So it cannot carry much of a payload. One thing that regular aircraft have is a transponder that identifies it to air towers. It is a good idea for commercial and private aircraft, why not drones?
 
I work as an armed security officer at a nuclear power station and I can tell you that drone flyovers have become a concern for us and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Drones can be used in a number of ways to jeopardize the security of our plants (surveillance and/or delivery of payloads, just to name two)

The NRC and FAA are currently working with other U. S. agencies (and other countries, esp. France and Britain) to come up with ways to combat this threat. They will, I am sure, craft rules and regulations that prohibit the flying of drones anywhere near sensitive nuclear facilities of any kind, but that will only keep out honest hobbyists and not terrorists and others intent on harming said facilities. So, what to do about those with malicious intent?

As a hobbyist flyer and someone with major concerns about restricted airspace, I welcome this technology. I do, however, think that this technology should be regulated tightly and authorized only to people and agencies with a definite need to possess and use it.

As for what type of control should be used against a drone invading the airspace of the place I am paid to protect, I believe that just as I am authorized to shoot and kill anyone who illegally gains entrance to our facility and tries to get past me and near a vital area or piece of equipment, the technology used should be able to destroy or disable the drone. (Although, gaining control of said aircraft might be better simply because then the recovery of the SD card or other recording device would be all but assured.)

Just my two cents...

Thank you for sharing your perspective, and indeed all valid concerns. Hopefully the minds that are working on solutions will be level headed, intelligent, and reasoned responses. The last thing we need are companies like D13 providing solutions like Mesmer to harry home owner.
 
I work as an armed security officer at a nuclear power station and I can tell you that drone flyovers have become a concern for us and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Drones can be used in a number of ways to jeopardize the security of our plants (surveillance and/or delivery of payloads, just to name two)

The NRC and FAA are currently working with other U. S. agencies (and other countries, esp. France and Britain) to come up with ways to combat this threat. They will, I am sure, craft rules and regulations that prohibit the flying of drones anywhere near sensitive nuclear facilities of any kind, but that will only keep out honest hobbyists and not terrorists and others intent on harming said facilities. So, what to do about those with malicious intent?

As a hobbyist flyer and someone with major concerns about restricted airspace, I welcome this technology. I do, however, think that this technology should be regulated tightly and authorized only to people and agencies with a definite need to possess and use it.

As for what type of control should be used against a drone invading the airspace of the place I am paid to protect, I believe that just as I am authorized to shoot and kill anyone who illegally gains entrance to our facility and tries to get past me and near a vital area or piece of equipment, the technology used should be able to destroy or disable the drone. (Although, gaining control of said aircraft might be better simply because then the recovery of the SD card or other recording device would be all but assured.)

Just my two cents...
But are you guys really that worried about drones? If you were a half bright terrorist, you'd rent a Cessna and take some pictures out the window. You're certainly not going to deploy any sort of weapon that's likely to bother any sort of industrial building with a Phantom.

You can get pretty detailed satellite photos of anywhere, including power plants.

There are obviously lots of ways to hit soft targets and nuc plants aren't very soft. Easier and more effective to blow up a refinery. And not that easy, actually. A shopping mall at Christmas would be even easier and, from the terror angle, better 'publicity'. These anti drone devices really don't sound very useful. You would have to either have somebody looking around all of the time for little bitty plastic things or some sort of souped up radar. I suppose you could sniff for the telemetry signals and start squeaking when you found it but that isn't all that easy and might be overwhelmed by background emissions.

But if I were doing that, I'd try to force an RTH to go find the guy flying the drone rather than blowing it to bits. Thinking about it some more, that seems like the easiest approach. Just dump enough 2.4 GHz signal to trash the RC telemetry and it will fly back to papa. Even if the perp was smart enough to set the Home point somewhere else, you stand a chance of getting the drone back which would be potentially useful.
 
I have to believe there are other, more robust 'drones' that can carry a much larger payload that these little quad copters?
 
For obvious reasons, I will not go into details about the problems with drone flyovers, but they are a real concern. I will say that the airspace over nuclear facilities is restricted and small airplanes, including Cessnas, are not allowed to linger over any nuclear facility without permission and even large commercial jets have rules about flights near nuclear plants. We occasionally experience flyovers by military and police aircraft, and even local power company craft, but we always have advanced warnings with a description and even tail numbers. Any unusual or unexpected actions by manned aircraft would prompt a reaction by us and other authorities. I cannot, and will not, go any further in this discussion.

As far as payloads, I was not talking about Phantoms in particular. Larger, stronger uavs are being built every day, some of them more than capable of delivering sizable payloads.

I really didn't mean to start discussing security at nuke plants, I really just wanted to bring another view into the discussion of geofences and other means of keeping drones out of sensitive airspace.
 

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