By: Jeff Finan
Law enforcement agencies were some of the very first to recognize the enormous benefits that could come from harnessing the power of drones. Unfortunately, the bad guys weren’t far behind . . . and in some ways they are even getting ahead.
On the good side of the technology, law enforcement agencies use drones for a number of purposes, including:
· Mapping traffic accidents. An airborne drone can remove hours from the traditional work of using tape measures to diagram out the scene of a major accident. Drones are so useful in this that they are finding their ways into the trunks of many state patrol cars as standard equipment.
· Scoping natural disasters. Whether dealing with flooding, wild fires, or the aftermath of tornadoes or other events, drones can provide a bird’s-eye view of the terrain, to help police, search and rescue teams, and utility workers survey damage, search for survivors, and better deploy resources.
· Monitoring public events. Parades, festivals, marathon races, protest marches, and other events that bring throngs of people into centralized locations create situations where law enforcement and other public organizations may need to keep track of what is happening to ensure safety.
· Site surveillance. Police use drones to establish aerial surveillance of locations prior to planned enforcement actions to ensure the best timing for SWAT teams or other forces, while ensuring the safety of others in the area.
A Growing Threat
Unfortunately, drones are often misused by the public. Drone users span a spectrum going from compliant to criminal, with plenty of variations between, including the careless, clueless, and crazy. For example, the FAA closes airspace over stadiums, race tracks, and a range of other venues for major events. Yet violations are common. At least four NFL stadiums have seen drone intrusions, as well as a number of university football stadiums.
Perry Tarrant, retired Assistant Chief of the Seattle Police Department, where he commanded the Special Operations Bureau, and now advises on the beneficial uses of drones for policing—as well as on countering the threats from maliciously used drones—has seen the damage that can come from someone simply losing control of a drone, which happened when an 18” by 18” 2-pound drone crash landed during a parade in Seattle.
“We had a large crowd and someone was flying a UAS [unmanned aircraft system, the more formal name for a drone], it lost power, and crashed into a woman’s head,” Tarrant recalls. “She was seriously injured, knocked unconscious, and required several stitches.”
The Seattle Times reports a jury later convicted the drone pilot of a gross misdemeanor of reckless endangerment, and that he was fined $500 and sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Terrorists with Drones
And making things worse, drones are being weaponized by terrorist groups. The massive threat of weaponized drones—including to our critical infrastructure—is gaining attention:
• The New York Times reports: “In the United States, the authorities voice increasing concerns about possible Islamic State-inspired drone attacks against dams, nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure.”
• Reuters reports that “FBI director Christopher Wray told a U.S. Senate panel the threat from drones ‘Is steadily escalating’ and has ‘only increased in light of the publicity associated with the apparent attempted assassination of Venezuelan President Maduro using explosives-laden drones.’”
• Homeland Security Today reports: “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Assistant Director for Infrastructure Security Brian Harrell says of drones ‘This is not an emerging threat. This was emerging five years ago. This is here. It is now.’”
Drones as Cruise Missiles
As drones get bigger, so do their potential payloads. An example of this is the recently introduced Kalishnikov KUB-UAV. The same company that became a household name with its military rifles is now offering a drone that is four feet wide, can fly for 30 minutes at a speed of 80 mph and carries six pounds of explosives. That makes it roughly the size of a coffee table that can be guided to explode on a target 40 miles away — the equivalent of a “small, slow and presumably inexpensive cruise missile,” according to a report by the National Interest website.
Putting the threat of the Kalishnikov into chilling perspective, the Washington Post quotes Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations at the University of Illinois and author of the book Drones and Terrorism, as saying, “Whoever buys one will have the ability to steer a bomb with a high degree of accuracy unparalleled except by some of the U.S. military’s smartest bombs.”
Needed: Situational Awareness
The FAA estimates there are some two million drones in the United States, which means that law enforcement agencies regularly include drone detection when planning security for large public events. Part of the all-important situational awareness for law enforcement includes detecting as soon as possible if drones are entering the air space above a large event. Tarrant is relieved to see development of electronic detection systems which should be able to provide earlier and more precise alerting than simply a person watching the sky.
“There are a number of electronic detection systems already commercially available and others in development, that should provide better detection,” Tarrant says. “And it's only a matter of time before such systems become more of a requirement for local law enforcement.”
Radar Required
Detection devices can range from small radar systems to high-definition cameras and radio frequency detectors. Important for law enforcement is the evidentiary value of and need for persistent, high-fidelity drone detection and tracking data that precisely identifies and follows drone activity in the protected airspace. The optimum solution will involve a combination of detection, tracking, classification, and identification technologies working together, so that a portable radar deployed at an event could detect an incoming drone, while a high definition camera could capture an image, and RF detection could help determine its point of control.
High-performance radar—ideally delivered as a portable unit for mobile deployment—should be part of any detection system because the maneuverability of drones can be difficult to track with traditional mechanical rotating radar. Their signal update rates are once per revolution, which can vary from one to three seconds or more. While this update rate works fine for large aircraft, drones are orders of magnitude smaller, and able to autonomously alter flight vectors to confuse and deter tracking.
The Mitigation Question
The big question that currently lacks an answer is: What comes after detection and identification of an unmanned aircraft flying in protected airspace?
Will we someday see miniature dog fights in the air as law enforcement launches pursuit drones to track and destroy intruder drones? Not quite yet. For one thing, there’s a big concern about collateral damage, including the danger posed by a disabled drone falling from the sky onto a crowd below.
Even jamming the radio frequency of an intruder could cause it to fall onto people below. And for the serious criminal, drones can be flown without using radio frequencies. And interrupting radio frequencies could have unintended consequences, perhaps interfering with other communication systems, including medical devices such as pacemakers for the heart or insulin pumps.
Of the available mitigation technologies for non-military use, none could intercept a drone like that marketed and sold by Kalashnikov as a weapon. Drone manufacturers will continue to deliver longer range, better payload capacity, and improved battery performance for their retail markets, which terrorists and other criminals can use to create their weaponized versions.
Something needs to be done to permit properly designated authorities to take action against drone operators misusing an unmanned aircraft. But just what those measures will be still needs to be worked out—on the federal level, as any vehicle that moves through the air is within the province of the FAA—and on the state level, where myriad statutes obscure the rights of those beneath the unmanned aircraft and deny the use of mitigation technologies.
Pressure on the FAA, and Congress, and state authorities is building, but simple answers continue to be elusive. Cathy L. Lanier, the NFL’s Senior Vice President of Security, told the Washington Post “We have to get it together sooner or later. Drones aren’t even new. The new technology now is autonomous vehicles. We’re already behind the curve by a couple generations.”
It could be a long wait for the FAA and Congress to formulate the laws and regulations guiding mitigation. Meanwhile, law enforcement can enjoy the benefits of drone technology, while deploying the situational awareness technology needed to help protect against the illegal use of the technology.
About the Author:
Jeff Finan is the Vice President of Business Development at Echodyne Corporation which is a privately held company bringing metamaterials-based radar products to market. Prior to joining Echodyne, Jeff was a General Manager at Microsoft for 12 years where he and his teams developed new software and hardware products for consumers and enterprise customers. Before Microsoft, Jeff had senior level roles at Motorola on the Iridium Program and at Teledesic developing telecommunications products and services that were efforts to build global mobile and broadband wireless systems using space-based infrastructure. Jeff also served as a Captain in the United States Air Force where he had responsibility for the launch and mission control of National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellites. Jeff has a Master of Science Degree in Aeronautics/Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Jeff is also a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he received a B.S. in Astronautical Engineering.
