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Dutch police to train birds to take down unauthorised drones
- cellularmitosis 11y agoHave you ever seen a video of Steven Seagal or similar Aikido masters performing seemingly effortless take-downs against waves of opponents? This bird program is very similar: impressive in a demonstration and totally useless in real life. The key is that in the demonstration, only willing opponents are used. Notice that the drone in the video is completely motionless? In real life, if the pilot sees the bird coming at the last moment, it will tilt the drone to try and accelerate away. This is highly, highly likely to result in the bird's outstretched feet getting lopped off.
- cellularmitosis 11y agoOn second thought, the one advantage which this does have over alternatives (like throwing a net to foul the props, or using a microwave canon to disable the electronics) is that the drone won't plummet into the crowd below. If you can rely on the assumption that a drone which loses control signal will hover in place or slowly descend (or some similar "safe" maneuver), you could combine the bird technique with a jamming device. The jamming device keeps the drone still just long enough for the bird to snatch it out of the air safely. Similarly, you could train the bird to expect the drone to start free-falling just moments before it arrives, such that the bird compensates and catches the drone in free-fall. You could then deploy the bird against a drone and use a focused microwave cannon to take out the drone's electronics just before the bird arrives.