Looking to address the issue, the FAA has instigated the Pathfinder Programme to evaluate technologies that can be used to detect and identify unauthorised UAV or drone flights near airports. As part of this programme, the FAA has selected the Anti UAV Defence System (AUDS), developed by Blighter Surveillance Systems, Chess Dynamics and Enterprise Control Systems.
Mark Radford, speaking for the AUDS team, said: “The FAA contacted our team following the success of AUDS at US Government sponsored counter UAV trials at the end of 2015. These trials confirmed that our production system was able to detect, track, disrupt and defeat a wide range of micro, mini and larger UAVs or drones – even on unscripted sorties.”
The AUDS system can detect a drone 10km away using electronic scanning radar, track it using precision infrared and daylight cameras and specialist video tracking software before disrupting the flight using an inhibitor to block the radio signals that control it. This detect, track, disrupt, defeat process is very quick and typically takes less than 15s.
AUDS integrates Blighter’s A400 Series Ku band electronic scanning air security radar, Chess Dynamics’ stabilised electro-optic director, infrared and daylight cameras and target tracking software, and a directional RF inhibitor from Enterprise Control Systems.
For more on the technology, click here.