Drone threats to civil aviation have become more complex in recent years, leaving regulators scrambling to recommend the most effective protection measures. Amateur drone operators violating airspace around airports continue to pose problems, but recent attacks mounted by Iranian surrogates—such as Houthi forces in Yemen mounting attacks in the Red Sea—have raised the stakes.
Major aerospace and defense groups have made significant investments in technology for deployment in combat scenarios and to protect commercial flights, using a mix of radar and sensor combinations. They include Lockheed Martin’s Morfius counter-drone-swarm interceptor system, the Thales EagleShield, Qinetiq’s Obsidian, Saab’s Girafe 1X radar system, and Leonardo UK’s FalconShield, which the company developed in response to the December 2018 incident that severely disrupted flights into London Gatwick Airport.
The RTX group’s Raytheon has accumulated an extensive portfolio of counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, including the Coyote, which uses advanced seekers to direct drones against drone threats. The Phaser high-power microwave system uses directed energy to disrupt guidance systems, and the Raytheon arsenal also includes Ku-band radio frequency sensors and high-energy lasers.
In view of the security threats against Israel, it is unsurprising the country’s industry has deployed significant resources to develop more advanced counter-drone protection systems. In the face of airspace incursions by North Korean drones, South Korea approached Rafael to evaluate its Sky Spotter system, which uses passive early warning electro-optical sensors and radar countermeasures.
Sky Spotter features a wide-field-of-view staring sensor that keeps continual watch, and its imagery can engage, track, and manage numerous targets at once and provide a sense-and-warn function automatically. In a networked system, the quantity of staring sensors can expand to guarantee complete coverage.
According to Rafael, it uses sophisticated artificial intelligence, image processing, and automation algorithms. The company says that it developed Sky Spotter as part of a standalone automated sense-and-warn system for force protection, air situational awareness, and support for counter-uncrewed aircraft operations and ground-based air defense systems.
Elta, the electronics division of Israel Aerospace Industries, has developed Drone Guard to detect and block a drone’s communication capability to neutralize it without compromising the communication systems of nearby civilian infrastructure. The technology runs on a combination of 3D radars that trace the air targets using electro-optical sensors and communications intelligence, as well as a proprietary drone flight disruption system.
A unified command and control unit manages all the Drone Guard sensors. According to Elta, it opted for a layered configuration maintaining protection against drone attacks even if one layer fails.
There are instances in which so-called ‘soft kill’ drone attacks get deflected or neutralized without the use of destructive force but are not sufficient to protect sensitive areas like airports. That prompted Rafael to develop Drone Dome to supplement the capability of Sky Spotter. The technology depends on a radar and laser-beam system for detecting and destroying drones, as the company adapts its existing laser systems to handle the threat.
In simple terms, once the system’s radar identifies targets, its laser system destroys them. Drone Dome also features a jamming system for disrupting communications between the drone and its operator.
Drone Dome’s range can extend to several miles but causes minimal interruptions to other systems in nearby urban areas. The activation of directional GPS/GNSS signals and a radio-frequency inhibitor/jammer device neutralize the drone threat. The equipment can integrate with an optional laser weapon.
Elbit Systems’ contribution to the anti-drone arena is the ReDrone system. According to the company, the system can detect, identify, locate, and neutralize commercial drone threats in real-time.
The foundation for the ReDrone system consists of battlefield-proven signal intelligence and electronic warfare technologies to establish options for both short and long-range protection, making it ideal for use in multiple scenarios, including airports.
The ReDrone features 360-degree coverage and can detect and defeat single or multiple drones simultaneously. As a passive system with reactive jamming, it transmits only when it detects a drone. Once detected, the system sends an automatic alert and the process of neutralizing the drone’s navigation and communication capabilities begins.
Increasingly, it has become clear that military drone-protection system technology doesn't always readily adapt to protect commercial airports. One of the new generation systems developed to address the challenge has come from another Israeli company called D-Fend. With the EnforceAir2 system, Elbit has deployed cybersecurity capability to take full control of an uncrewed air vehicle or drone after “interrogating” it to assess the level of threat. According to chief marketing officer Jeffrey Starr, the process has proved more effective than a soft kill or direct attack using projectiles to achieve a hard kill.