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I don't know - the idea of someone who has done a week's "security training" running around all that expensive, critical ground and airborne communications & na

I don't know - the idea of someone who has done a week's "security training" running around all that expensive, critical ground and airborne communications & navigation equipment with a weapon capable of blasting out EMP signals makes me more than a little nervous... No matter how expensive the "gun" is, you cannot really direct an EMP wave and restrict it like a traditional borescope weapon. All it will take is for someone firing it across an ILS transmitter array at a drone on the other side, and the airport loses their Cat II landing capability just as the airport gets socked in.

akira2501 10y ago
Using a phased array you can "lens" a signal fairly effectively. Aside from this, you could use multiple transmitters that are fairly low power on their own, but in a combined and targeted shot could deliver a knockout blow to a drone.
benh14 10y ago
from what I've heard, the 'guns' are just signal jammers
- tomswartz07 10y ago
  The problem being that in order to effectively 'jam' a signal far away, antenna theory requires that a fairly significant proportion of that radio energy must be directed out the back of the 'antenna'/gun. Right into the person firing it. That's also ignoring the fact that if the signal to a drone is lost, it's more than likely to fall out of the sky like a ton of bricks.
  - mnarayan01 10y ago
    > That's also ignoring the fact that if the signal to a drone is lost, it's more than likely to fall out of the sky like a ton of bricks. Consumer drones typically have well-defined and behaved signal loss behavior, which (for DJI ones at least) is even fairly configurable. Though quite often that behavior involves gaining a substantial amount of altitude (at least by default), which at an airport is actually probably worse than dropping.
  - sp332 10y ago
    I don't see why the signal has to go out the back. Otherwise dish-type antennas couldn't work. And those TV aerials would work as well pointed 180 degrees away from a signal as straight at it, which isn't true.
    - tomswartz07 10y ago
      It's based on the antenna design. These 'jammer' devices aren't dish based; they're designed after Yagi-Uda style antennas, in the format of a 'rifle' that the user points at the drone. The radiation pattern for them is exactly as I described. [1] [1] https://www.electronics-notes.com/images/antenna-yagi-radiation-pattern-polar-diagram-02.svg https://www.electronics-notes.com/images/antenna-yagi-radiat...

akira2501 10y ago

Using a phased array you can "lens" a signal fairly effectively. Aside from this, you could use multiple transmitters that are fairly low power on their own, but in a combined and targeted shot could deliver a knockout blow to a drone.

benh14 10y ago

from what I've heard, the 'guns' are just signal jammers

tomswartz07 10y ago
The problem being that in order to effectively 'jam' a signal far away, antenna theory requires that a fairly significant proportion of that radio energy must be directed out the back of the 'antenna'/gun. Right into the person firing it. That's also ignoring the fact that if the signal to a drone is lost, it's more than likely to fall out of the sky like a ton of bricks.
- mnarayan01 10y ago
  > That's also ignoring the fact that if the signal to a drone is lost, it's more than likely to fall out of the sky like a ton of bricks. Consumer drones typically have well-defined and behaved signal loss behavior, which (for DJI ones at least) is even fairly configurable. Though quite often that behavior involves gaining a substantial amount of altitude (at least by default), which at an airport is actually probably worse than dropping.
- sp332 10y ago
  I don't see why the signal has to go out the back. Otherwise dish-type antennas couldn't work. And those TV aerials would work as well pointed 180 degrees away from a signal as straight at it, which isn't true.
  - tomswartz07 10y ago
    It's based on the antenna design. These 'jammer' devices aren't dish based; they're designed after Yagi-Uda style antennas, in the format of a 'rifle' that the user points at the drone. The radiation pattern for them is exactly as I described. [1] [1] https://www.electronics-notes.com/images/antenna-yagi-radiation-pattern-polar-diagram-02.svg https://www.electronics-notes.com/images/antenna-yagi-radiat...