Drone hunter recognises & prevents remote microdrones

Radio-controlled microdrones repeatedly violate the privacy of people and the boundaries of protected areas. The drivers of the drones are not always ignorant individuals, and the transgressions not always harmless. Companies fear industrial espionage. The flying objects can interfere with the safe handling of air traffic at airports. At major events, drones pose a security risk.

The R&S ARDRONIS radiomonitoring solution, will allow authorized law enforcement agencies to locate the operator of a remote controlled microdrone and intervene in time. Remote controls for microdrones usually operate in the 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz ISM band, but also in other frequency bands e.g. 433 MHz or 4.3 GHz. The R&S ARDRONIS solution monitors the signals in the relevant frequency bands. It has an extensive library of drone control signal profiles in order to detect and classify these types of signals. R&S ARDRONIS reliably and automatically detects the remote control of a commercial microdrone within a 1 km radius.

R&S ARDRONIS can additionally be equipped with a DF function. The direction information obtained can be used to find the person with the remote control. If the drone transmits a video downlink, this signal will also be located. The information is clearly displayed on a map.

Other options are available for R&S ARDRONIS, that for example purposefully interrupt drone control signals to prevent the drone from performing a safety-critical maneuver. Only the signals for controlling the drones are disturbed. Other signals in the environment are not affected.

For the G7 summit held at Elmau Castle in June 2015 and at Herrenhausen Castle when the President of the United States was in Germany for the Hanover Trade Fair, the underlying R&S ARDRONIS technologies were used to secure the sites from unauthorized, remote-controlled drones. Thanks to the development of a simplified operating concept, R&S ARDRONIS is now available for a wide range of users.