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Interesting bits... One piece of equipment believed to have been deployed at the airport is the Israeli-developed Drone Dome system, which can detect drones us

Interesting bits... One piece of equipment believed to have been deployed at the airport is the Israeli-developed Drone Dome system, which can detect drones using radar. It can also jam communications between the drone and its operator, enabling authorities to take control of and land the drone. In a move known as "buzzing the tower", it emerged the perpetrator had taunted airport staff by circling the drone around the building and flashing its lights A detailed description of the drone, provided by witnesses, meant experts were able to determine the make and model of the machine, which is only available from a handful of locations in the UK. Police and military experts were deployed to search for the operators of the drones, which reappeared near the airport every time the authorities tried to reopen the runways. TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender and police mainly relied on informants and traditional detective work of identifying drone and who might have purchased it. Better coverage is here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-airport-drone-chaos-man-woman-arrested-passengers-brace/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/gatwick-airport-... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/22/gatwick-drone-arrests-two-people-held-over-disruption-of-airport https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/22/gatwick-dron...

raverbashing 8y ago
You can probably triangulate the controller if you know which radio frequency it uses
WalterBright 8y ago
Shouldn't it be fairly easy to thoroughly jam it, and then the drone does whatever the default is when it loses all radio and GPS data?
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  There are drones with 4G comms. Shutting off the entire local phone network may be less acceptable.
  - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
    I recon for ~$300 in parts your "typical hardware hacker" could build a rig that would focus 600W of microwave energy into a parabolic dish with reasonably tight beam. That shouldn't really affect anything but the drone. If I was building a drone to do sabotage, I'd build a comms link around modulated NIR lasers targeted with mirrors rotated by microsteppers.
    - 7952 8y ago
      Did you see the article about optical links for micro sats? http://news.mit.edu/2018/laser-pointing-system-satellites-transmit-data-1214 http://news.mit.edu/2018/laser-pointing-system-satellites-tr... I wonder if you could communicate with a drone from orbit (obviously in clear conditions).
    - unethical_ban 8y ago
      *reckon I thought you were saying you do reconnaissance for $300 before finishing the sentence.
  - tjoff 8y ago
    Can't you just jam it with a very directional antenna?
    - berkut 8y ago
      You need to find where it is first and be able to track it.
      - tjoff 8y ago
        Finding it doesn't seem hard, it really seemed to try to get as much attention as possible. And without being able to command it or GPS it shouldn't be hard to track it either.
        berkut 8y ago
- berkut 8y ago
  If it's being controlled with a controller, yes, although at 2.4 Ghz, they frequency-hop, and jamming the entire spectrum close to loads of aircraft (even if grounded) and a terminal with wifi etc is likely to cause some collateral disruption. Gatwick's also surrounded by loads of businesses (although at night they'd mostly be closed). However, if it's not a commercial one or has been modified, it could be using waypoints so jamming the communications wouldn't do anything useful in that case. Jamming GPS is more problematic, I'm not sure how localised that could be, if it can't be it's unlikely they can do this as so much stuff relies on it these days (even aircraft, although DME/VOR waypoints are still used).
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Aircraft do not rely on GPS precisely because it’s so easy to jam. It’s only a convenience.
    - nippoo 8y ago
      This is increasingly untrue. RNAV/PNAV approaches are increasingly being flown - which are exclusively satellite-based navigation, and, at smaller airports, “traditional” approaches based on ground instrumentation are being phased out due to cost and inflexibility... potentially leaving pilots stranded in bad weather conditions if GPS fails.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      They're definitely less safe without it though. Also, I don't know about the UK's laws, but any sort of radiofrequency jamming is illegal in the US except in extremely extenuating circumstances (like war) that I don't think a roving drone would fall under.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Wouldn't a directional antenna aimed at it minimize such collateral interference?
    - jsjohnst 8y ago
geoah 8y ago
I've seen a lot of suggestions floating around on jamming the signal. But that assumes that there is an active operator and not a drone that has been told to go between a pre set list of coordinates. Most high end should support gps navigation so I assuming that you have enough money and don't need to ever recover a drone after it's out of battery you can probably increase your chances of not getting caught.
- kierenj 8y ago
  Then you jam GPS
  - bencollier49 8y ago
    At an airport.
    - kortilla 8y ago
      Which is fine because it’s not necessary for aviation.
    - cjrp 8y ago
      GPS disruption is NOTAM'd or scheduled with Ofcom[1] from time-to-time, although not usually at the airport itself. Given that Gatwick was shut at the time, it wouldn't have affected the aircraft since they weren't able to go anywhere. [1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/gps-jamming-exercises https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/gps-jamming-ex...
    - 7952 8y ago
      I wonder how much of a problem that would actually cause? Surely they could announce the lack of GPS on ATC and the pilots could revert to ground based navaids. Of course it might be difficult to keep the effect localised considering how weak the competing signal from space is.
  - andrewnicolalde 8y ago
    What about all of the other legitimate users of GPS?
Pica_soO 8y ago
All these assumes run of the mill drones, without autistic modes - and waypoint patrolling or any other autonomous behaviour. Also assumes there is a operator or deployer there in the first place. If you mail-order drone parts to a flat, have them assembled by task rabbits, the police can go chasing all day long, and only arrest the equivalent to some warehouse employees. Oh brave new world you crafted..
ryanlol 8y ago
>TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender and police mainly relied on informants and traditional detective work of identifying drone and who might have purchased it. Like with almost any other crime.
zimpenfish 8y ago
> A detailed description of the drone, provided by witnesses, meant experts were able to determine the make and model of the machine, which is only available from a handful of locations in the UK. I mean, if you've got a fairly unique drone, don't be stupid enough to give people a bloody good look at it. Be smarter.
- toyg 8y ago
  The guy had just shut down the second biggest airport in the country for almost a day at that point, he was probably drunk on power.
rasz 8y ago
>Israeli-developed Drone Dome >TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender $200 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kerberossdr-4x-coherent-rtl-sdr#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kerberossdr-4x-coherent-r...
golemiprague 8y ago
You have to note that the UK army bought the system without the laser destroying capability, so it is only radio jamming.

raverbashing 8y ago

You can probably triangulate the controller if you know which radio frequency it uses

WalterBright 8y ago

Shouldn't it be fairly easy to thoroughly jam it, and then the drone does whatever the default is when it loses all radio and GPS data?

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
There are drones with 4G comms. Shutting off the entire local phone network may be less acceptable.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  I recon for ~$300 in parts your "typical hardware hacker" could build a rig that would focus 600W of microwave energy into a parabolic dish with reasonably tight beam. That shouldn't really affect anything but the drone. If I was building a drone to do sabotage, I'd build a comms link around modulated NIR lasers targeted with mirrors rotated by microsteppers.
  - 7952 8y ago
    Did you see the article about optical links for micro sats? http://news.mit.edu/2018/laser-pointing-system-satellites-transmit-data-1214 http://news.mit.edu/2018/laser-pointing-system-satellites-tr... I wonder if you could communicate with a drone from orbit (obviously in clear conditions).
  - unethical_ban 8y ago
    *reckon I thought you were saying you do reconnaissance for $300 before finishing the sentence.
- tjoff 8y ago
  Can't you just jam it with a very directional antenna?
  - berkut 8y ago
    You need to find where it is first and be able to track it.
    - tjoff 8y ago
      Finding it doesn't seem hard, it really seemed to try to get as much attention as possible. And without being able to command it or GPS it shouldn't be hard to track it either.
      - berkut 8y ago
berkut 8y ago
If it's being controlled with a controller, yes, although at 2.4 Ghz, they frequency-hop, and jamming the entire spectrum close to loads of aircraft (even if grounded) and a terminal with wifi etc is likely to cause some collateral disruption. Gatwick's also surrounded by loads of businesses (although at night they'd mostly be closed). However, if it's not a commercial one or has been modified, it could be using waypoints so jamming the communications wouldn't do anything useful in that case. Jamming GPS is more problematic, I'm not sure how localised that could be, if it can't be it's unlikely they can do this as so much stuff relies on it these days (even aircraft, although DME/VOR waypoints are still used).
- kortilla 8y ago
  Aircraft do not rely on GPS precisely because it’s so easy to jam. It’s only a convenience.
  - nippoo 8y ago
    This is increasingly untrue. RNAV/PNAV approaches are increasingly being flown - which are exclusively satellite-based navigation, and, at smaller airports, “traditional” approaches based on ground instrumentation are being phased out due to cost and inflexibility... potentially leaving pilots stranded in bad weather conditions if GPS fails.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    They're definitely less safe without it though. Also, I don't know about the UK's laws, but any sort of radiofrequency jamming is illegal in the US except in extremely extenuating circumstances (like war) that I don't think a roving drone would fall under.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Wouldn't a directional antenna aimed at it minimize such collateral interference?
  - jsjohnst 8y ago

geoah 8y ago

I've seen a lot of suggestions floating around on jamming the signal. But that assumes that there is an active operator and not a drone that has been told to go between a pre set list of coordinates. Most high end should support gps navigation so I assuming that you have enough money and don't need to ever recover a drone after it's out of battery you can probably increase your chances of not getting caught.

kierenj 8y ago
Then you jam GPS
- bencollier49 8y ago
  At an airport.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    Which is fine because it’s not necessary for aviation.
  - cjrp 8y ago
    GPS disruption is NOTAM'd or scheduled with Ofcom[1] from time-to-time, although not usually at the airport itself. Given that Gatwick was shut at the time, it wouldn't have affected the aircraft since they weren't able to go anywhere. [1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/gps-jamming-exercises https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/gps-jamming-ex...
  - 7952 8y ago
    I wonder how much of a problem that would actually cause? Surely they could announce the lack of GPS on ATC and the pilots could revert to ground based navaids. Of course it might be difficult to keep the effect localised considering how weak the competing signal from space is.
- andrewnicolalde 8y ago
  What about all of the other legitimate users of GPS?

Pica_soO 8y ago

All these assumes run of the mill drones, without autistic modes - and waypoint patrolling or any other autonomous behaviour. Also assumes there is a operator or deployer there in the first place. If you mail-order drone parts to a flat, have them assembled by task rabbits, the police can go chasing all day long, and only arrest the equivalent to some warehouse employees. Oh brave new world you crafted..

ryanlol 8y ago

>TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender and police mainly relied on informants and traditional detective work of identifying drone and who might have purchased it. Like with almost any other crime.

zimpenfish 8y ago

> A detailed description of the drone, provided by witnesses, meant experts were able to determine the make and model of the machine, which is only available from a handful of locations in the UK. I mean, if you've got a fairly unique drone, don't be stupid enough to give people a bloody good look at it. Be smarter.

toyg 8y ago
The guy had just shut down the second biggest airport in the country for almost a day at that point, he was probably drunk on power.

rasz 8y ago

>Israeli-developed Drone Dome >TLDR; There are no sure fire way to track down offender $200 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kerberossdr-4x-coherent-rtl-sdr#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kerberossdr-4x-coherent-r...

golemiprague 8y ago

You have to note that the UK army bought the system without the laser destroying capability, so it is only radio jamming.