The war against drones is heating up with airports around the world reporting incursions by these robotic flying pests. Cost effective solutions are still thin on the ground. With countries like Russia and China on the warpath there is a need to step up development and research for better drone management solutions. On the back of drone developments in the Ukraine war, a new R&D facility is being planned for Adelaide in South Australia to accelerate the development of next generation counter drone technology.
ASX-listed technology company DroneShield has announced it will build a new $13m research facility in Adelaide as it moves to "accelerate the development" of its next-generation counter-drone products amid a world of "surging" drone attacks.
The investment was expected to create about 20 high-skilled engineering roles in the city, focused radiofrequency electronics, electronic warfare and systems integration, the company said.
The facility will be led by Jeff Wojtiuk, a former Lockheed Martin Australia engineer.
The facility is expected to be fully operational by March next year.
[Ed. question: If you were a betting person, where are you putting your money for the most effective counter? EMP? Kinetic? Lasers? Drone attacking drones?]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21, @02:26PM (2 children)
The beginning of Skynet
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 21, @05:53PM (1 child)
Only if the AIs get control of the drones.
That could never happen.
Not even in a million microseconds.
If we sing a slaying song tonight, what tools will be used for the slaying?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, @12:44AM
My drones are metallic. It's a chrome dome
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SemperOSS on Tuesday October 21, @02:38PM (5 children)
In a slightly longer term perspective, I believe the order of efficiency (and avoiding too much human damage) would be:
It is rather difficult to get rid of those pests without either using a lot a resources or a lot of ammo (or both).
Open Source Solutions and Digital Sovereignty is the new black
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday October 21, @04:22PM (1 child)
> 4. Kinetic weapon
Just to note that bullets can come back down again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday October 21, @04:34PM
While kinetic rounds will eventually fall to the ground out of the list I would assume it to be the least problematic. Lasers so far is a bit of a dud as far as I can recall. Also if they get freaked out by laser-pointers and potential eye damage from people accidentally (or not) hit then that is nothing compared to having a laser show high powered enough to blast a drone out of the sky. EMP is probably even worse then kinetic since I assume there will be aiming and radius issues. Drones attacking drones, so that will fall down to, but it's basically twice the junk (or more) so even more junk falling uncontrollably from the sky compared to kinetic rounds. Can't see that being better.
I'd go for some kind of shotgun. Plenty of people engage in skeet shooting, drones are basically just even larger skeets (or clay pigeons or whatever you like to call them). You might want to alter the size of composition of the pellets. You might build some kind of special round, I recall seeming something from the Ukraine about them basically building ball-n-chain pellets (pellets, or larger slugs connected to another slug by wire). Perhaps it would be enough to just build them out of hard plastics or ceramics instead of metal. They just have to survive ignition and initial contact with the target. After all you don't need to vaporize the drone, just harm it enough that it will either fall to the ground (bad, but could be worse) or that it will sustain so much damage that it will attempt to land or return to base.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday October 21, @04:45PM
How far do we consider to be "short range" when it comes to shotguns? 50-100 meters and it should still be quite effective, depending on the round. After all you might not have to vaporize the thing for it to be taken out. For that matter what is the range of Lasers or EMP? You don't want to have it at say an airport and then have the EMP blow every piece of electronics in a radius of a kilometer out of this world. It has to be very short and targeted so you have to be very very close at which time it might just be better to crash something into it instead (drone or a kinetic round of some kind).
SAAB put together a system (LOKE) from the knowledge gained in the Ukraine, basically a mobile radar system hooked up with a .50 Machine Gun (think it was a M2 Browning). I'm sure that will shatter whatever it hits. If it missed or passes thru after it hits I wouldn't want to be down range and take a stray .50 round. Seems a bit overkill unless it is a very very large drone.
https://www.saab.com/newsroom/stories/2025/september/the-loke-counter-drone-concept-debuts-in-nato-mission [saab.com]
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday October 21, @08:25PM (1 child)
EMP weapons are largely science fiction.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, @01:38AM
Nuclear weapons can be used as very effective EMPs. Side-effects may include killing everyone that you're trying to protect. Please consult your GP before use.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 21, @04:01PM
13 million is a lot of money, more than you can make in your life, for most people.
But if you measure it in engineer salary-years, it reads as a really paltry and not especially newsworthy sum.
Like... Ten employees for five years? I could understand local coverage of it in Adelaide, but that's seriously like a week's operating expenses of the larger drone factories in the world.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ingar on Tuesday October 21, @04:55PM
A 13-meter facility is rather small.
Love is a three-edged sword: heart, soul, and reality.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Barenflimski on Tuesday October 21, @05:23PM (1 child)
I'm rooting for Kamikaze pigeons.
Not only do they breed fast and are easily trainable, the impacts would make for quite a site!
Best part is they turn into fertilizer when they have completed the job which could theoretically lower the price if we include carbon credits in the final cost.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TyZone on Tuesday October 21, @05:49PM
Regards, TyZone
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday October 21, @05:51PM
The only way to stop a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a drone.
Or vice versa.
I could drone on and on about the advantages of this approach.
If we sing a slaying song tonight, what tools will be used for the slaying?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jb on Wednesday October 22, @06:05AM (2 children)
Best solution would be for the government to declare a bounty on shooting down drones, just like they do with certain live wild pests when they reach plague proportions. Only difference is "drone season" could last all year round and the declared area could be the whole country.
To claim the bounty should require turning in the debris to the authorities, which would no doubt provide useful material to study the evolving nature of attempted attacks.
Much lower overall cost than anything that's under consideration; the money spent by definition would all stay in Australia (so help the economy, not hurt it); and as a nice bonus it might even get a new generation interested in hunting.
Of course it won't happen though, because to do so would involve the Australian government deciding to stop demonising hunters (which seems to be one of its favourite hobbies).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28, @11:47AM (1 child)
Of all of the suggestions this is the best. Don't dump millions into research. Just get humanity to do what it does best. People will clear the skies for you with sufficient incentive.
Make a gadget or a check for unregistered drones. Declare unregistered drones to be illegal and worth $500 if brought in, preferably mostly intact if possible or video of it being blown out of the sky. Easy. Cheaper.
Eventually someone will figure out how to make a living out of this. One drone per week can pay for rent/food.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday November 03, @09:21PM
Considering a small drone, hobby type drones, can be bought as kits for like $50-$100. If I was getting $500 to bring them down and hand them in I would quit my day job and become a drone hunter ...