50 As uncrewed aircraft evolve, so too must counter-UAS (C-UAS) solutions. For most of the last decade, the latter has consisted of many strategies, which can be arranged to work together to protect vital assets such as defence bases, industrial installations or airports from attacks by hostile agents operating UAVs. Particular praise has been levelled towards static or handheld devices for taking aim at hostile or non-compliant UAVs and pulling a trigger to jam their data links. The typical response of disposable and remotely piloted UAVs (such as those of DJI or Yuneec) to such jamming has been to freeze, start descending or return to their launch point. Beyond this, there are situations where, upon detection of a hostile drone, it is perfectly safe and acceptable to simply destroy it by firearm or similar means, but in cases where people or infrastructure below may be harmed by falling debris, or if there is a risk of a chemical agent or other substance onboard the trespassing drone, a non-destructive approach such as jamming is desirable. As UAVs become more autonomous, with open-source communities and others making algorithms for full autonomy (including simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) and collision avoidance) available to all, C-UAS jamming solutions become dramatically less useful. An autonomous drone does not have to lose control in response to jamming as remotely piloted ones do; it can continue flying towards its target or loiter obstructively in forbidden airspace, causing lengthy and costly disturbance, akin to the rogue drone flown over London Gatwick in December 2018. Israel-based Robotican has developed its Goshawk Interceptor UAV solution and the infrastructure key to its operations to enable the physical capture of hostile drones in a non-destructive way. The firm has developed the craft to autonomously outmanoeuvre hostile autonomous drones on behalf of key customers across defence and other industries. “In civilian and defence sectors alike, you now need some kind of physical, autonomous mitigation to counter the Rory Jackson investigates a counter-UAS system modelled on a hawk Swoop and scoop April/May 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mzk4