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I've seen the robotically controlled Lockheed Martin laser that is meant to be able to take on drone swarms which is very similar to what you are talking about.
by robkop 9y ago
I've seen the robotically controlled Lockheed Martin laser that is meant to be able to take on drone swarms which is very similar to what you are talking about.
The question to me is how do you defend civilian targets like universities, city halls and malls? You can't build military style defences around these targets and the budget is going to be pretty low. Also you need a exceptionally low response time since the drones can deploy and kill in seconds.
- state_less 9y agoThat's difficult to answer. Soft targets are, well, soft. If you arm the state capital, they'll move to the university, museum, or large landmark. Protect those, and they'll move to further down the chain. Perhaps one of the best option is to try to prevent social unrest before it happens. Maybe we can repurpose tech to help us communicate better with each other. Beyond that, you might see people purchasing defensive measures once attacks become more of a threat. Whether that's lasers, other drones or something we haven't thought of. There would be a demand for counter measures - you can already see the market forming for such counter measures.
- sitkack 9y agoNever give up, never surrender.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoAnother approach is to criminalise possession and sale of ROV components and prosecute with extreme prejudice.
- Zardoz84 9y agoAnd another brick on the wall... Do you really think that it would work to avoid to someone grab the necessary components to build a cheap drone ? What must criminalise is the components to make drones a weapon. Aka, EXPLOSIVES and WEAPONS. And restrict access to chemicals to make explosives. And this would not work when the guys building it, are living on anarchy place where the effective law are made by they.
- cwkoss 9y agoA person with the right knowledge, time, and some land in the middle of the nowhere can manufacture explosives with no external inputs. Banning explosives can never completely prevent their creation, and trying to do so would have numerous harmful effects to agricultural and chemical industries.
- matheweis 9y agoSome kind of explosives are trivially made, a fact which is severely complicating basic STEM education as common materials that have other uses but happen to be usable for making weapons are increasingly difficult to obtain...
- mncharity 9y agoIt also comes up in STEM education content. For example, industrial dust explosions could be a good illustration of several principles (including the importance of surface to volume ratio), but... there are potential downsides to using it. More generally, STEM education remains innocuous only as long as it pervasively fails. If that ever changes, society will have some issues to decide. And not a great track record of handling similar ones. Even a simple matrix of "what do you get when you mix one common household material with another" has some "seriously: don't do that" nodes.
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoOffer them fake warm targets, looking human enough. So if you detect drones, sound a disperse alarm and inflate a group of warm blooded dolls. Then hope and prey.
- mseebach 9y agoThe same way you defend them against all other sorts of attacks: you make sure the attackers don't get close to the target. Ie: good law enforcement and intelligence work. For a drone to attack and kill in seconds, you need to basically launch it from the parking lot. If you are bringing weaponry to the parking lot, there are plenty of other (much simpler and cheaper) non-drone-attacks available to you, yet these attacks are really quite rare.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The question to me is how do you defend civilian targets like universities, city halls and malls? Against drones? You probably don't. I mean, those are pretty vulnerable to all sorts of attacks; aerial drones don't really change things.