Drone sightings over Gatwick Airport

We were talking about this earlier today Debs.

There are a number of possibilities:

1. Some sort of environmental group making a protest against flying

2. A low-level terrorist incident by a group like ISIS

3. A disruptive ploy by a foreign power

4. A malicious prank by a non politically motivated indidual or group.

If it's 1, there's no way they can claim it was them, because if they do, they will not only leave themselves open to criminal prosecutions, but also crippling civil actions from hundreds of thousands of disgruntled travellers (I bet there are scores of lawyers rubbing their hands with glee at that one). The same applies to 4, if they are caught. 2, I guess there's not a lot anyone can do about it, same for 3 (could affected travellers bring a civil action against a foreign government? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer).

I know nothing about these drones, but I assume that they’re only allowed to operate over a very limited band of frequencies. If so, surely it should be possible to block the transmitter frequency by a more powerful transmitter on the same frequency. That’s how CB radio used to interfere with radio controlled model aircraft causing them to crash. 

My principal question is, "what does society want to do, to eliminate this threat going forward ?"

Don Atkinson posted:

My principal question is, "what does society want to do, to eliminate this threat going forward ?"

Don, we'll need to have a referendum to find that out ; )

Richard will close THIS thread down before Xmas if we go down that path !!!

Radio controlled aircraft have been around for a long time, and I surprised we have not seen more terrorist/criminal activity using them,. I guess the real advance is effective fly by wire technology allowing for greater scope for more remote and distant control.. I am certainly aware of controversial civil engineering projects needing to be robust against UAV terrorism and other unlawful activity... 

i think what is is interesting and a little depressing  that there has been a  complacency and over focus on low power small consumer so called ‘drone’ devices using ISM radio bands (the same bands used for Wifi) for control which are relatively harmless and limited power and endurance, it looks like this device(s) at Gatwick is a modified or home built largish  UAV aircraft, being  modified or built for increased endurance and possibly using unlawful frequencies for radio control.. 

i was looking at a commercial industrial UAV device used by a certain large UK police force a few week ago, and these things aren’t small, and certainly not cheap... ie 70 to 90,000 pounds.. however even these the endurance is not much more than 20 minutes... but are highly capable for none line of sight flying which the CAA grants sometimes for specialist uses.

I am aware of other agencies exploring the use of fixed wing UAVs, as these have significantly longer endurance and are able to withstand higher winds.

The Gatwick UAV if it some sort of copter, like a quad  or hex copter it will be limited by weather and wind.. and I do wonder if the Gatwick disruption ceasing is simply because of thee deterioration of weather and higher winds...

Clive B posted:

I know nothing about these drones, but I assume that they’re only allowed to operate over a very limited band of frequencies. If so, surely it should be possible to block the transmitter frequency by a more powerful transmitter on the same frequency. That’s how CB radio used to interfere with radio controlled model aircraft causing them to crash. 

I think these drones have been "professionally" modified to be controlled on an unusual part of the spectrum or on a rapidly changing spectrum of frequencies.

Also their in-built airfield proximity limit devices have been hacked out.

I'm no expert on these matters, but I think these were the sort of comments being made by so-called experts on the Jeremy Vine programme yesterday.

Don Atkinson posted:

Clive B posted:

I know nothing about these drones, but I assume that they’re only allowed to operate over a very limited band of frequencies. If so, surely it should be possible to block the transmitter frequency by a more powerful transmitter on the same frequency. That’s how CB radio used to interfere with radio controlled model aircraft causing them to crash. 

I think these drones have been "professionally" modified to be controlled on an unusual part of the spectrum or on a rapidly changing spectrum of frequencies.

Also their in-built airfield proximity limit devices have been hacked out.

I'm no expert on these matters, but I think these were the sort of comments being made by so-called experts on the Jeremy Vine programme yesterday.

Can be devices setup for autonomous flight. No radio signals to track or disturb. Using GPS?

Based on my experience with Watchkeeper, yes !

And why just Gatwick?

There is more to this than meets the eye...

/dl

Don Atkinson posted:

Based on my experience with Watchkeeper, yes !

Looked up Watchkeeper, amazing stuff. At least for someone like me who is a novice.

I looked up autonomous drone on youtube and there are plenty. GPS or even small selfie drones that automatically follows someone.

This one use Lidar vehicle-radar, I read researchers can fool Lidar. Like project a cow on the road. But that capability may not be common yet. 

DIL posted:

And why just Gatwick?      There is more to this than meets the eye...

My question exactly.   

Aside from that,   I watched (a lot) & flew a drone (briefly) for the first time in SA a few weeks ago.  They are smart little cookies, very clever electronics,  hover it from of you & set that geo position to 'home' & no matter what, loss of signal, confusion, lost sight, and/or press the home button & it flies back to just that exact position.    I can imagine a smart drone programmer can set these devises to do stuff that can fool a lot of counter measures.

And here we are being told to worry about nuclear strikes  and cyber attacks  when a simple device like a drone can cause absolute  havoc. 

Tony2011 posted:

And here we are being told to worry about nuclear strikes  and cyber attacks  when a simple device like a drone can cause absolute  havoc. 

Don't worry, the Government say they will handle this drone problem with the same efficiency, integrity, and expertise of how they're handling Brexit...

naim_nymph posted:

Tony2011 posted:

And here we are being told to worry about nuclear strikes  and cyber attacks  when a simple device like a drone can cause absolute  havoc. 

Don't worry, the Government say they will handle this drone problem with the same efficiency, integrity, and expertise of how they're handling Brexit...

Ah, as a remainer that's very reassuring. Now, where did I leave that UAV remote?

The simple stuff is the most evil.

Here is a college student DIY:ing a GPS-based autonomous drone with just an arduino board. Common parts so they cant track your purchase if you want to distueb an airport. Build a bunch of them and set them up around an airport with timers and then sit at home and watch the chaos on TV.

It is scary how within reach it seems ...

I’ve got a drone. They can be controlled from many miles away. Surely someone must see who’s launching them though. 

Well it looks like two arrests have been made, I am interested to see what equipment was being used and how and if modified as well as the two suspects motives... I suspect they were not using basic consumer ‘drones’ that the media likes to focus on .. consumer drones have geofencing and use ISM bands which have relatively little range over urban or suburban areas (which is currently an issue in some professional UAV usecases) ... scratch built or  modified UAV drones will probably require quite a different approach in countering.

And yes certain consumer drones can be setup for autonomous flight and autonomous functions.

Let the drone wars commence 

hmmm..............

As of today the police have one "danaged" drone (could be anyones !) and one wrong line of enquiry.

Not good.

 I'm very interested in the technology being used on both sides,  I hope some of the details are released when the case is finally solved.   

But to Don's point, 100% agree, it really is not good.  Whoever it is & whatever the motives, it seems they are making the police & the other specialists involved in finding & stopping this look like amateurs,  & I'm sure they are far from not that. 

But whatever this is an extremely serious issue, it has to be a massive wake up call to all governments around the world; to be able to fly around anywhere & especially a high security area like a major airport with impunity,  What if the drone was carrying ordnance or thinking of Salisbury something worse.  how is GCHQ protected, same for our military airfields, any & all security sensitive locations.    It really is extremely serious.    

Mike-B posted:

 I'm very interested in the technology being used on both sides,  I hope some of the details are released when the case is finally solved.   

But to Don's point, 100% agree, it really is not good.  Whoever it is & whatever the motives, it seems they are making the police & the other specialists involved in finding & stopping this look like amateurs,  & I'm sure they are far from not that. 

But whatever this is an extremely serious issue, it has to be a massive wake up call to all governments around the world; to be able to fly around anywhere & especially a high security area like a major airport with impunity,  What if the drone was carrying ordnance or thinking of Salisbury something worse.  how is GCHQ protected, same for our military airfields, any & all security sensitive locations.    It really is extremely serious.    

Yep, you've captured the real issues here Mike.

This WILL (or blooming well should) have very serious and widespread issues that need to be anticipated and countered, to safeguard our futures.

Not sure where to start at the moment. But I hope others are !

Mike-B posted:

 I'm very interested in the technology being used on both sides,  I hope some of the details are released when the case is finally solved.   

But to Don's point, 100% agree, it really is not good.  Whoever it is & whatever the motives, it seems they are making the police & the other specialists involved in finding & stopping this look like amateurs,  & I'm sure they are far from not that. 

But whatever this is an extremely serious issue, it has to be a massive wake up call to all governments around the world; to be able to fly around anywhere & especially a high security area like a major airport with impunity,  What if the drone was carrying ordnance or thinking of Salisbury something worse.  how is GCHQ protected, same for our military airfields, any & all security sensitive locations.    It really is extremely serious.    

Radio controlled UAVs are not new.. and I have seen contracts specifically identifying robustness against deliberate collisions from small UAVs.. and these go back a little time..

Of course radio controlled aircraft have been a curse for prisons etc for some time... but there does seem to have been a complacency and an unhealthy focus on mostly harmless consumer devices and those who are law abiding... all, or the vast majority of  issues seem to be from criminal intent and activity, just as with any technology or vehicle.

The BMFA in the UK (assoctauon for radio controlled aircraft) has an excellent safety record going back decades... the issue is criminal activity and regulation and laws don’t apply... just like with vehicles... any criminal will bypass and ignore such legislation.

If explosives were to be used, I would have thought relatively large fixed wing radio controlled UAVs  would be used, .. they have longer endurance, can potentially carry larger payload, are faster, more resistant to winds and adverse weather, and can in many circumstances be hand launched... but these are the things you are unlikely to buy over the counter or from Amazon.. and unlikely to use the low power ISM radio bands. and they won’t look like the a toy quadcopter which seems to be the cliche image of a ‘drone’ used by many, especially the media.

Now back to Gatwick.. if this found damaged UAV turns out related to last week’s activities, assuming it has computer control, automation and telemetry circuitry on it, is almost certainly going to be rather revealing of its owner(s)