Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
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28 June 19. USAF Unveils Microwave Drone-Killer. The US Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base unveiled a new weapon in a live demonstration with local reporters, who watched the system effortlessly knock a hovering drone out of the sky with an invisible and inaudible electromagnetic wave. The $15m system, called the Tactical High Power Microwave Operational Responder, or THOR, disabled the unmanned aerial vehicle in a flash, sending it spiraling to the ground the moment the electromagnetic ray hit it. Had more drones been flying within THOR’s expansive scope, they also would have dropped in an instant, THOR program manager Amber Anderson said.
“It operates like a flashlight,” Anderson said after the demonstration. “It spreads out when the operator hits the button, and anything within that cone will be taken down. It engages in the blink of an eye.”
The AFRL built the machine on an expedited, 18-month timeline to get it into war fighters’ hands as fast as possible, given the increasing military threat from drones, said Kelly Hammett, head of AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate in Albuquerque. The system is aimed at protecting military bases from multiple-drone attacks, which the Air Force has identified as its No. 1 priority for emerging “directed energy,” or microwave and laser, defense systems.
That’s because conventional defenses offer limited protection against swarms of incoming drones. Sharpshooters or military jets, for example, can’t take out 50 drones at once, but THOR can.
“It’s built to negate swarms of drones,” Anderson said. “We want to drop many of them at one time without a single leaker getting through.”
AFRL spent $15m to develop THOR, which could cost about $10m to produce if the U.S. Department of Defense chooses to deploy it, Hammett said. It was built in cooperation with three companies, including global engineering firms BAE Systems and Leidos and the Albuquerque firm Verus Research. The project created 20 full-time jobs in Albuquerque outside the AFRL, Hammett said.
If THOR is adopted by the Defense Department, it could mean a lot more local jobs, because the system is likely to be manufactured here, at least partly.
“If the Air Force or Army decide to procure it, that would be big for Albuquerque,” Hammett said. “It would establish a manufacturing and production base right here, representing hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.”
The AFRL has been developing mircowave and laser defense technology for years, including collaboration with Raytheon, which built its own anti-drone microwave system in recent years that it successfully tested against swarms of UAVs at Fort Sill, Okla., in December 2017, and at White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico last fall.
Those tests, however, showed some limitations when integrating Raytheon’s system with other military technologies and battlefield tactics and protocols, Hammett said. Raytheon has since invested more resources to further develop its system, which could still be deployed in the future by the military.
But AFRL chose to also build THOR to offer different operating capabilities and more options for the military to rapidly meet urgent defense needs, Hammett said.
It’s designed for rapid deployment wherever needed, with the microwave antennae and foundation stored in a shipping container transported on a flatbed truck. The equipment is stored in parts for easy, snap-together assembly in just three hours.
“It takes two people to set it up and three to tear it down.” Anderson said. “You can take it to the field, rapidly set it up and it’s ready to fire. It’s designed as a turnkey system.”
A handheld remote control rotates the antennas in all directions as needed, providing 360-degree defense against drones. The firing mechanism and overall system control are operated from a laptop.(Source: UAS VISION/Task & Purpose)
28 June 19. Airbus enhances geospatial imagery with Vision-1. Airbus has enlarged its high-resolution imagery portfolio after an agreement to leverage capacity from the S1-4 satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). This new imagery offer, called Vision-1, delivers full, end-to-end imaging operations to Airbus’ customers.
Vision-1 provides 0.9-metre resolution imagery in the panchromatic band and 3.5-metre in the multispectral bands (NIR, RGB), with a 20.8-kilometre swath width. These specifications are ideal for defence, security and agriculture applications, while this extra revisit opportunity further strengthens Airbus’ satellite fleet.
“This new asset will reinforce our monitoring capabilities for sub-metre imaging, and feed our OneAtlas digital platform to provide increased freshness,” said François Lombard, director of intelligence business at Airbus Defence and Space.
Vision-1 operations will be co-ordinated by Airbus in the UK, following integration into the UK Mission Operation Centre, which already operates the commercial imaging of the DMC Constellation. This is an important step for UK sovereign imaging capability, adding sub-metre data to the existing UK imaging capabilities.
As Vision-1 was launched in September 2018 together with NovaSAR, this opens significant opportunities for applications combining optical and radar satellite imagery. Along with Vision-1, Airbus offers commercial access to the largest fleet of Earth observation satellites: Pléiades, SPOT 6/7, DMC Constellation and the weather-independent radar satellites TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and PAZ. (Source: Space Connect)
27 June 19. New Russian Anti-Drone Weapon by ZALA AERO. ZALA AERO presented new version of the well-known anti-drone weapon REX-1 on the International military-technical forum “Army 2019”. Anti-drone gun REX-2 became lighter: its dimensions were decreased, its weight now is 3 kg. The basic configuration contains three suppression modules (2,4 GHz, 5,8 GHz, SNS). SNS suppression module is built in the REX-2 body. There is also indication of the battery that makes it easier to control the battery charge. Like in the previous version, the suppression frequencies may be adjusted according to customer’s requirements. Video recorder, strobe, laser and aiming device are available as an option. Also REX-2 completed laboratory tests and approved to be safe for a human operator. The electromagnetic radiation rate is within permissible values. (Source: UAS VISION)
27 June 19. When drones are used maliciously, can anyone stop them? The UK DASA has issued a call for solutions to find and neutralise small UAVs, which in the light of the Gatwick and Heathrow drone attacks was one of the key topics at the recent Security and Counter Terror Expo 2019. What threats do small drones pose and can anyone stop malicious attacks with drones?
The recent disruptions caused by drones entering the airspaces of Gatwick and Heathrow airports in the UK have thrown into question national readiness in dealing with threats from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
In some respects, the UK Civil Aviation Authority has already learnt from the Gatwick incident and has adopted initial response measures and the UK Government’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) has just launched a new £2m competition to foster innovation in counter-UAV technology.
However, there is still currently a gaping hole in the security industry regarding how to identify and stop a drone. What types of threats are there from small drones and what measures can governments take for threat prevention and elimination?
Threats from small drones: what is realistic?
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Possibly the most impactful threat – but also the least probable – is the use of small drones to commit terrorist attacks. While UAVs have been known to commit terrorist acts in Turkey and Syria, the chances of drone terrorism occurring in the UK are minimal.
Speaking at the recent Security and Counter Terror Expo (SCTX) 2019, Andrew McQuillan, director of Crowded Space Drones, which operates the counter-UAV systems for Gatwick airport, said: “I don’t want to push drones up there too high as a main threat. The counter terrorism police believe it is a relatively minor threat in terms of the grand scale of things. They think that vehicle attacks or suicide bombings are a much more likely methodology.”
More concerning is the use of small drones as a distraction, to cause panic in a large crowd, to overload electronic warfare capabilities, or for transporting contraband.
Blighter Surveillance Systems business development manage Geoff Moore agrees, saying that the use of drones “as a means of delivering some sort of a physical, explosive, or biological attack” is not the only potential threat at which we should be looking.
“They could simply be used as yet another means of overloading control and command solutions and providing diversions that take away the resources,” Moore said during a counter-UAV panel discussion at SCTX 2019.
“Or desensitise the command and control solution to the event so that they open up or expose areas of weakness elsewhere that then can be attacked through more traditional means.”
These are the kind of threats that the DASA competition is trying to address, making use of autonomous mechanisms, networks of sensors, and comprehensive detection and elimination systems with both soft and hard kill measures.
Soft vs hard kill
There is somewhat of a divide in the industry today, with some companies focusing on stopping drones through radio-frequency (RF) jammers, spoofing and electronic interference, while others are developing counter-UAV systems that can autonomously capture or destroy a drone.
Jamming is the practice of using a transmission blocking signal to disrupt the pilot’s communications with the drone. A successful jam will cause the drone to fall to the ground. Spoofing allows a third party, such as the police, to take over a drone by impersonating its remote control system.
However, soft kill measures are only effective in the right circumstances. One emerging issue is the greater use of waypoints to fly drones that can be plotted using mapping software on a tablet or personal computer. Since there is no remote control, there is no RF signal to hear or jam.
Fortem Technologies CEO Tim Bean said in the panel discussion: “We believe that there is 30-40%, and it’s growing, of people that aren’t using joysticks anymore, they are using iPads and flying on waypoints. Those are not heard by the antenna anymore.
“We believe that having a radar system that can actively see [a drone], not relying on listening, is needed because that’s solving 90% of the criminal use.”
Fortem is the same company developing the autonomous Drone Hunter, itself a UAV with anti-drone hard kill capabilities. As soon as a UAV passes over the perimeter of an airspace, the Drone Hunter launches into the sky at around 70mph, locks onto the enemy drone and fires a net to trap and tow the drone away.
It is safer and more effective than a soldier or police officer manually attempting to shoot the drone down with a firearm. The Drone Hunter’s autonomy also gives it a massive edge. Bean noted how US Army drone specialists even tried catching a drone by manually driving the Drone Hunter and failed to catch one in 38 attempts.
However, even the Drone Hunter has its own issues to iron out, not least that it only has two shots, rendering it ineffective against multiple drones or a swarm.
Counter-UAV technology a ‘chocolate fireguard’
The level of innovation in the field of counter-UAV technology is certainly promising but, so far, nothing is sufficient as a complete package, and both governments and the private sector are looking at combination of technologies to create a secure airspace.
“What we’ve seen is companies coming in with drone detection products who are claiming that they can, for example, deal with the Gatwick and Heathrow incidents, and also detect any type of drone coming in,” McQuillan said.
“We know there is almost no product on the market that can categorically cover all types of drones out there. So that’s my concern, that there are still companies out there that are trying to sell you things that are essentially a ‘chocolate fireguard’.”
McQuillan noted that all major airports are viewing a combination of solutions, using different types of technology that can make the airspace as secure as possible, but there is as yet no guarantee that the system will identify and stop malicious drones.
He added: “Some [solutions] will tell you there is a drone nearby, some will triangulate it, and some will tell you exactly where it is. The key thing is to find a solution that fits with your crowded place.” (Source: airforce-technology.com)
26 June 19. The sensor solutions provider HENSOLDT has enhanced an important feature of its collision avoidance radar system for UAVs. As part of extensive laboratory tests and measurements, HENSOLDT has developed a special radome technology which protects the radar from mechanical environmental influence such as bird strikes or lightning, while minimally affecting the radar’s functionality. The architecture of the new radome was initially tailored to a test aircraft but can be adapted to other platforms. Further flight tests are scheduled to take place this summer.
HENSOLDT has developed a demonstrator of a so-called detect-and-avoid radar system, which uses the latest radar technology to detect objects in the flight path of a UAV and to give early warning of any threat of collision following precise evaluation of the flight direction. At the same time, the sensor also assumes all the functions of a weather radar system. The multifunction radar for UAVs will be presented for the first time to the general public in Ulm, during the International Radar Symposium of the German Institute for Navigation (DGON).
The radar system uses state-of-the-art AESA technology (Active Electronically Scanned Array), which allows several detection tasks to be carried out at the same time and enables objects to be detected extremely fast. It replaces the pilot’s visual assessment of the situation. Thanks to its excellent detection capabilities, the multifunction radar is equally suitable for military and civilian UAVs, e.g. for the delivery of cargo.
This radar system, which is incorporated into the UAV’s nose, needs to be protected by a radome that is electrically transparent, has exactly the same thickness across the board and is adapted to the aerodynamics of the platform. This, however, requires special knowledge of materials processing and the operating principle of radar systems.
HENSOLDT is one of the world’s leading radar manufacturers and operates one of Europe’s largest cleanroom production facilities at its Ulm site in order to produce the radio-frequency components required for AESA equipment. The company’s radar systems and radar components are used on board aircraft, satellites, ships and in ground stations.
25 June 19. SIG SAUER Electro-Optics is pleased to announce the 2019 Industry Choice, Optic of the Year KILO3000BDX Rangefinding Binoculars are now shipping. The SIG SAUER Electro-Optics KILO3000BDX Rangefinding Binoculars are the world’s most advanced laser rangefinder binocular. They can be used on their own or be paired with a Ballistic Data Xchange (BDX) Riflescope and SIG BDX app. The BDX system allows input of ballistics data and environmental conditions to calculate the exact holdover solution to target. This information is displayed in the KILO3000BDX and can be transmitted to any BDX riflescope to display the exact holdover dot. The KILO3000BDX Features the revolutionary LightWave DSP™ rangefinder engine for extreme speed and distance capabilities, HyperScan™ technology providing 4 range updates per second, and the Lumatic™ display that automatically calibrates display brightness to ambient light conditions. MSRP: $1,439.99
Complete product specs and information on the SIG SAUER Electro-Optics KILO3000BDX Rangefinding Binoculars is available at sigsauer.com.
17 June 19. US Air Force seeks contractor to deliver Silent Archer C-UAS components. The Air Force Materiel Command, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Battle Management Directorate, Force Protection Systems Division, Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) Branch AFLCMC/HBUC, Hanscom AFB, MA is issuing a Sources Sought Synopsis to identify companies that have the capabilities to provide Silent Archer hardware and support services. AFLCMC/HBUC is planning to issue a sole source contract award for the purchase of production and sustainment, hardware and services, of the following Silent Archer Family of Systems and their assorted variants: Duke V4 AN/VLQ-12(V4), Duke V5 (AN/VLQ-12 (V5), AF-LSTAR Radar (AN/TPQ-50), and Nighthawk High-Definition (HD) Camera under a new indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle.
Solicitation Number: C-UAS-19-001
Deadline for responses: 26 June 2019
Responsible organisation: US Air Force
(Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 June 19. Duke University researchers “developing USD1,000 app to detect drones near prisons.” Engineers at Duke University in the USA are teaming up with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety to address a growing concern for correctional facilities worldwide—drones delivering contraband over prison walls.
“Mary “Missy” Cummings, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke and a team of students, have been developing an alerting system that uses microphones and thermal cameras to detect unwanted drones and the people flying them, says a Duke University news report. “Their colleagues at Clemson, meanwhile, built a synthetic “bird’s nest” the size of a hawk’s nest to camouflage the associated equipment. The team will be beta testing the system with the Town of Cary later this summer, and eventually with Duke Gardens. If the initial results are promising, Sutton hopes the emerging system might be able to extend to monitoring the walls of North Carolina’s prisons.”
In related research, according to university news report. “Chunge Wang, a Duke undergraduate student majoring in computer science, created a new app interface for the equipment that is tailored to the needs of prisons, dubbed Prison Reconnaissance Information System (PRIS). In its current form, the hardware consists of a microphone connected to a Raspberry Pi—a simple, inexpensive computer board originally developed to teach basic programming—a data server and a smart phone, costing less than USD1,000 total. The Raspberry Pi is loaded with a machine learning algorithm that constantly processes the data collected from the microphone to isolate the sounds a drone makes from background noise. When it detects the buzzing whir of a drone’s propellers, it sends a notification to an app loaded on smart phones carried by the prison’s security personnel.”
“The app displays the information in a visually dynamic way in real-time, using different symbols overlaid on a map view of the prison,” explained Wang. “The goal is for the users to be able to quickly understand where and how far away the potential threat is, how confident the system is that it’s actually a drone, and what’s most likely to happen next.”
For more information: https://pratt.duke.edu/about/news/prison-drones (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
23 June 19. 5G! DRONES research project starts – Poland’s DroneRadar joins the consortium. Polish UTM company DroneRadar has announced it will participate in the 5G!DRONES Project. The principal goal of this Horizon 2020 research and development programme is to trial several UAV use-cases covering eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband), URLLC (Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication), and mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications).
The programme’s kick-off meeting took place at Thales premises in Paris, France from 10 to 12 June 2019 when 20 partners from nine European countries met to discuss actions to be taken,
According to a programme news blog:
“Extensive discussions took place on the drones advances that are expected by 5G, allowing the realization of novel use cases.WP1 will focus in the definition of these novel use cases, which will later on the project lifetime demonstrated at the involved 5G facilities, such as 5GENESIS, 5G-EVE and others… The project will drive the UAV verticals and 5G networks to a win-win position, on one hand by showing that 5G is able to guarantee UAV vertical KPIs, and on the other hand by demonstrating that 5G can support challenging use-cases that put pressure on network resources, such as low-latency and reliable communication, massive number of connections and high bandwidth requirements, simultaneously. 5G!Drones will build on top of the 5G facilities provided by the ICT-17 projects and a number of support sites, while identifying and developing the missing components to trial UAV use-cases.
“The project will feature Network Slicing as the key component to simultaneously run the three types of UAV services on the same 5G infrastructure (including the RAN, back/fronthaul, Core), demonstrating that each UAV application runs independently and does not affect the performance of other UAV applications, while covering different 5G services. While considering verticals will be the main users of 5G!Drones, the project will build a software layer to automate the run of trials that exposes a high level API to request the execution of a trial according to the scenario defined by the vertical, while enforcing the trial’s scenario using the API exposed by the 5G facility, as well as the 5G!Drones enablers API deployed at the facility. Thus, 5G!Drones will enable abstracting all the low-level details to run the trials for a vertical and aims at validating 5G KPIs to support several UAV use-cases via trials using a 5G shared infrastructure, showing that 5G supports the performance requirements of UAVs with several simultaneous UAV applications with different characteristics (eMBB, uRLLC and mMTC). Using the obtained results, 5G!Drones will allow the UAV association to make recommendations for further improvements on 5G.”
For more information: https://5gdrones.eu/overview/(Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
23 June 19. Are counterdrone companies against drones? There is a common myth that manufacturers of counterdrone products are against drones in general. This brief article focuses on this topic.
“Burglar alarms against humanity”
To call a counterdrone company as being against drones (as opposed to being “pro-drone”), is much like calling a burglar alarm company as being against humanity. Yes, the alarm will trigger when a burglar breaks into the house, but the concept cannot be stretched into saying the burglar alarm companies are against people generally. Much same with drones, whereby manufacturers of technologies that detect and stop drones used in nefarious ways, are not against drones in general.
Noone wants a tragedy
Same applies for relationships between drone manufacturers and counterdrone manufacturers. No drone manufacturer wants their drone used for terrorism, airport disruptions, invasion of privacy, or other negative implications. It is in everyone’s interests to collaborate.
Drone manufacturers themselves are continuing to push with technologies that restrict nefarious use of drones, such as geo-fencing. However, those don’t provide universal coverage (no geo-fencing list is complete) and geo-fencing can be over-ridden by drone pilots. Also, as one drone brand becomes more difficult to be used for negative applications, there is always an option to switch to another drone maker with less restricted piloting options. Some drone manufacturers are also making foray into own counterdrone technologies, however those are only specific to their own brand, and normally don’t cover all of the models that even that brand makes. As with the rest of counterdrone products, there is no one silver bullet.
More drone-friendly legislation
Technologies that track and defeat drones also allow for greater freedom in legislation as any potential threat can be better managed. Several countries already banned drone use completely, and it would be unfortunate for this to continue spreading, given the overwhelmingly positive use of the drone technology.
Overlap with UTM technology
Additionally, counterdrone and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) technologies have a lot of overlaps – both involve tracking drones! There has been a substantial discussion on cooperative target tracking through drones requiring transponder chips, however as it stands today UTM continues to be tracking of uncooperative targets (ie drones without transponders), much in same way as counterdrone tech. It is clear that both industries will continue to track together for some time, and developments in one will benefit the other.
21 June 19. US Army seeking new sensors for ground combat vehicles. The US Army is looking to outfit its ground combat vehicles with new sensors that will enable the crew inside to better visualise their surroundings. In a 19 June request for information posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the service announced that it is seeking “affordable and mature” uncooled long-wave infrared (LWIR) sensors with a wide field of view (FOV) to feed high-definition (HD) video to crews inside its fleet of ground combat vehicles.
“The proposed system must provide a capability to allow the vehicle crew [driver, commander, squad], in both open and closed hatch operations, to visualise their immediate surroundings while stationary and on the move, day and night,” the service wrote. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
21 June 19. Lockheed Martin offering vision system upgrade for C-130Js. Lockheed Martin has introduced Enhanced Flight Vision System (EFVS) upgrades for some configurations of the C-130J tactical transport aircraft, company officials told Jane’s at the 2019 Paris Air Show, which was held from 17 to 23 June.
The upgrade, which comprises an internal research and development effort by Lockheed Martin, could be made available to C-130J customers, including the US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).
C-130J special operations cockpits typically utilise a terrain awareness and warning system; ground and traffic collision avoidance systems; flight management system; inertial navigation system; and night vision compatible heads-up display (HUD).
Speaking to Jane’s at Le Bourget, company officials said the EFVS would support low-level infiltration and exfiltration missions of C-130J aircraft and integrate additional sensor sight pictures into the pilot’s HUD to help with vision through clouds, smoke, and other obscurants. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
21 June 19. Space Fence mission change has US Air Force rethinking second radar site. Key Points:
- The US Air Force is reconsidering moving forward with the second Space Fence radar site
- This second site could likely be procured for about USD1bn
The US Air Force (USAF) is cooling on funding and procuring the second Space Fence space situational awareness (SSA) site because the programme’s mission changed from space traffic management to detecting attacks and transitioned from a military to civilian need, according to a former USAF and Pentagon official.
Douglas Loverro, former deputy assistant secretary of defence and former USAF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) director, told Jane’s on 21 June that the big need when the programme was founded in 2007 was space traffic management – tracking the 20,000 objects, mostly in low Earth orbit (LEO), and ensuring objects did not collide with each other. The legacy Air Force Space Surveillance System (AFSSS), he said, was not able to track very small objects reliably enough.
Loverro said by the time prime contractor Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract in 2014 to procure the first Space Fence site, the Pentagon’s view of space traffic shifted from avoiding collisions to detecting attacks. The commercial space industry, he said, was also on the cusp of large growth in small satellites, which caused the Pentagon to realise that this was going to become a civil problem of space congestion, not a military problem.
“Our mission is not really to go and do civil traffic management and traffic cop in space,” Loverro said. “Our mission is to do defence against attacks. While Space Fence is a great system … attacks in low Earth orbit do not require two space fences; they only require one.”
The USAF awarded Lockheed Martin a USD914.6m contract in 2014 for Space Fence, a phased-array, gallium nitride (GaN)- powered S-band radar that can provide constant coverage for anything in LEO, which is 3,000 km and below. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
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Blighter® Surveillance Systems (BSS) is a UK-based electronic-scanning radar and sensor solution provider delivering an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter electronic-scanning radars, cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Blighter radars combine patented solid-state Passive Electronic Scanning Array (PESA) technology with advanced Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Doppler processing to provide a robust and persistent surveillance capability. Blighter Surveillance Systems is a Plextek Group company, a leading British design house and technology innovator, and is based at Great Chesterford on the outskirts of Cambridge, England.
The Blighter electronic-scanning (e-scan) FMCW Doppler ground surveillance radar (GSR) is a unique patented product that provides robust intruder detection capabilities under the most difficult terrain and weather conditions. With no mechanical moving parts and 100% solid-state design, the Blighter radar family of products are extremely reliable and robust and require no routine maintenance for five years. The Blighter radar can operate over land and water rapidly searching for intruders as small a crawling person, kayaks and even low-flying objects. In its long-range modes the Blighter radar can rapidly scan an area in excess of 3,000 km² to ensure that intruders are detected, identified and intercepted before they reach critical areas.
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