Drones like quadcopters are incredibly popular. They can be really fun to fly but unfortunately, people can misuse them and that’s bad news especially when flying them in sensitive airspace. Since hunting them down with guns blazing is frowned upon, the government and law enforcement now have available to them the Battelle DroneDefender. This defensive weapon or “directed-energy UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] countermeasure” uses remote control drone disruption and GPS disruption to seize the remote controls of the drone and land it safely without damage while at the same time averting any threat. It performed consistently well in field trials according to the Battelle website. The DroneDefender has a cold start time of 0.1 sec, can continuously operate for five hours, and has an effective diameter cone of 30°. Just point and shoot. Crisis averted! Unfortunately for the rest of us, the Battelle website states, “This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization [from the FCC] is obtained.” Aww! This looks just as fun to use as drones are to fly! Maybe they’ll be available to us sometime in the future. If you would like more information, please visit the Battelle website.
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I like the idea, but honestly if you shoot down a 5-10 lb drone how can you control where it goes and who has the liability when it hits someone on the head?
Once the drone is captured by the DroneDefender, moving the “gun” will direct where to place the drone. See the following video:
http://www.battelle.org/site/dronedefender-video