Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2021 - 30

RF & Microwave Technology
Defeating Commercial Drone Threats with Software Defined Radio
I
t's nearly impossible to look at technology
news without seeing an article
about drones. Whether detailing how
Amazon wants to use drones to deliver
packages or revealing amazing aerial
video of automated drones following
Olympic snowboarders, commercial
drones are becoming ubiquitous. Drone
emergence has benefited many applications
including sports broadcasting and
wildlife preservation wilderness surveys.
Offering powerful, intelligent software,
drones are becoming less expensive
and easier to use, with substantial
operating range. As with any disruptive
technology, drone operation often attracts
bad actors looking to exploit the
capability for less-than-noble objectives.
Some reports have shown unmanned
commercial drones being used
for unwanted surveillance and even disrupting
commercial airspace, as seen recently
in the United Kingdom.
Fortunately, many strive to counter
these bad actors by developing drone defense
systems. Most drone defense systems
leverage technology to detect and
defeat threats. These systems use both active
and passive radar and many leverage
optical verification. Defeat methods vary
from nondestructive communication interception
and GPS jamming to using destructive
countermeasures such as munitions
or directed high-power lasers.
Key Technology Challenges
Every year, newer, more intelligent
commercial drones offer increasingly
more sophisticated command and control
(C2) and navigation systems. Today,
it's not uncommon for a drone to have
active object avoidance and auton -
omous modes. When a drone isn't
under direct pilot control, it makes C2
countermeasures difficult; thus, it is
common to disrupt or deny GPS with
either spoofing or jamming.
Drones with active remote piloting
offer a variety of communication methods
ranging from basic analog modulation
to highly secure digital links with encrypted
commands. Traditionally, you
might consider using a legacy highpower
jamming technique; however,
these can be quite disruptive to friendly
forces and can compromise a stealth operation
- not to mention dealing with
regulatory obstacles in many countries.
Making a single defense system adaptable
to target the wide range of C2 disruption
methods is a considerable challenge.
First, how do you keep pace with
technological evolution and field new
threat countermeasures quickly? Because
traditional long Department of
Defense (DoD) program development
cycles may be incompatible, many systems
have moved to commercial offthe-shelf
technology for faster deployment
so that system designers can focus
on the threat instead of hardware implementation.
Second
is the question of mobility:
While base protection is important,
many military operators need to deploy
an effective countermeasure solution on
vehicles in remote areas. Many times,
they lack the luxury of a vehicle with
the capacity to house a full-scale radar
system that includes cameras and destructive
countermeasures. Mobile sysUSRP
X310 test with drone.
30
Cov
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Aerospace & Defense Technology, June 2021
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Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2021

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