Zapping Drones

George Rebane

Recent reports of private drones being flown above active wildfires again makes me lose another dollop of faith in the brainpower of my fellow citizens.  Why anyone would want to endanger the fire attack spotters and tankers fighting the fire is beyond me.  So I started noodling on how to solve the problem.  The easiest would be for either the OV-10 spotter or a ground-based unit to just zap the drone with directed EMP.  That would fry enough of the drone’s electronics to bring it down.

From some back of the envelope calcs, such a ‘weapon’ would not be bigger than a small refrig to have a directional beamwidth sufficient to concentrate the EMP’s energy to an altitude of about one or two thousand feet above ground level.  When a rogue drone is spotted, the incident commander is notifed and queried as to its legitimacy; and if illegitimate, it is zapped.

Then I googled ‘directed EMP’ and got a snootful.  It’s not a surprise that a lot of people have been thinking about various versions of such a device.  For example, here.

Now you would think that DARPA would already have put out a couple or three contracts to create such a portable, short range, directed EMP device for military purposes if nothing else.  But as an old electronics engineer, it seems to me that such a gizmo could also be developed in your garage were you of a mind.  Who knows, there might arise a lively market for the Mk1Mod2 Drone Zapper all across America as people begin to see unknown drones hovering around their properties.  Think of all the legal ramifications if such drones start showing up missing.  Can privacy be a legal justification for zapping a drone hovering outside your window or over your house?  Is it legal to remove a bug you discover in your house, or a surreptitiously placed surveillance camera in your yard, or a hovering drone outside your window?

How about self-defense?  ‘The damn thing came down at us at a threatening angle, we didn’t know what its intent was or what it would do, so we zapped it.’

Anyway, I think the DZ may be the coming thing at a fire house, police department, or at a neighbor with an attitude.  Who knows, maybe someone has already built one, we know the Russians have.  Rumors and reports abound as to how something that was probably a more powerful and less directed EMP weapon, mounted on a Russian Sukhoi fighter which then ‘attacked’ and compromised major electronics systems on a US destroyer in the Black Sea.  I’d bet the ranch that the Pentagon is at least developing systems of equivalent or greater capability.  Creating EMPs with a nuclear explosion is so yesterday.

Anyway, keep checking your Hammacher-Schlemmer (say that fast three times) catalog for a Christmas gift this year for that buddy who has everything.

Comments

[Gary Smith]

I am a model airplane pilot but don't have camera on any of my planes. I have several friends that fly planes and helicopters with mounted cameras and some with ground receivers that they can fly them further away than line of sight. It is unfortunate that we are even having this discussion because of a minority of morons that are breaking the law. Anytime CDF is up over the fire, FAA regs make that an automatically closed airspace. Any aircraft, model or full scale that violates that airspace is breaking the law. Common sense alone should tell you that flying with the CDF pilots is a bad idea, but we all know how that works. I see California making some law to combat this problem. California has a track record making a one size fits law that will not fix the problem, hurt the law abiding citizens that follow the rules, and of course extract money from all that it can. It is unfortunate for the model aircraft community, but I can see this coming. I fly down by Beale AFB in the Spenceville Wildlife area and if you don't have a setup with multiple frequencies your aircraft will get overpowered with their radar or something else. You will lose signal and go collect your parts I have seen it several times first hand. They run on a 2.4 frequency that I am sure would easy to jam.

[Gary Smith]

I almost forgot about the part if it is legal to zap a drone over your property. Here is a case about a guy shooting down his neighbors drone with s shotgun. He just lost in small claims court and has to replace his neighbor's aircraft. This was in California by Modesto.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-skys-not-your-lawn-man-wins-lawsuit-after-neighbor-shotgunned-his-drone

[George Rebane]

GaryS 1145am - An EMP drone zapper would be so much more civil and undetectable. No bang, no smoke, no nothing - don't know what happened, the damn thing just fell out of the sky. You would have to have a fairly costly forensic investigation to determine that a couple of conductors in the bowels of a microprocessor fused, and even then, proving that this was the result of a directed EMP would be hard. Put away that shotgun and unlimber your DZ Mk1Mod5.

[Bob Hobert]

Drone loads have been around for some time now: http://cdn5.luckygunner.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/45228737f337fd7e2b88abba27d7c745/d/r/drone-loads-product-image-2.jpg

A zapper would be more discreet.

[Bill Tozer]

Wonder if a couple squirts of Deet or a whole can of Raid would kill them skeeters? BTY, back in the day, a flyswatter was quiet, effective, quite, affordable, required little training, and available to the masses. It appears nowadays, we need flyswatters with longer handles.

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-rise-of-the-drones-and-what-it-could-mean-for-your-health/

[Walt]

I don't know about a direct EMP device,, but RF jammers are already on the market, and pretty cheap.

[Paul Emery]

George

That might be a little dicey if the NCSD aquires a couple of drones, as has been suggested, to inspect Petunias in peoples back yards. Would you propose the same "cure" in that situation?

[George Rebane]

PaulE 1201pm - actually, a closer reading of my piece does not indicate that I've proposed any cure here. But I have ruminated about possible uses and abuses of drones in grass roots America. There are more opportunities for abuse than beneficial uses as weighed by private individuals living in a liberal democracy such as America. Government is my prime suspect for using this technology to abuse its citizens, then there is the criminal element, then the idiot living next door.

Prime example - sophisticated burglars will case the joint with a drone to determine occupant patterns, and most certainly before launching the burglary.

Backyard petunia inspections will be another abuse. But I suspect you'll get in trouble if you down a clearly marked sheriff's drone no matter what it's doing. This will be a new cultural metaphor in our lives as hundreds of thousands (millions?) of drones of all sizes and shapes invade our space. Orwell's wall-mounted TV camera was a harbinger that is now far surpassed by available technology, then wait until tomorrow.

[Brad C.]

I could see some other uses for EMP zappers. For example, zapping cars with obnoxious subwoofers, motorcycles with loud exhaust, people who talk too loud on their cell phones - or just about anything your annoying neighbors do.
These things are going to sell like hotcakes!
Put on a tinfoil vest to protect your pacemakers!