Many UAVs Vulnerable To Directed-Energy Weapons 153
mask.of.sanity writes "A New Zealand researcher has detailed ways that UAVs can be crashed using cheap tools like Herf guns and GPS jammers, and could even be downed by flying drones with more powerful radio. The attacks (podcast) interfere with the navigation systems used by flying drones and are possible because security was not designed into the architecture of some machines."
Illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
Next up: "drones vulnerable to anti-air missiles"
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You were the kind of kid who, upon reading about dinosaurs for the first time, said "yeah, well I already knew that there was such a thing as animals", right?
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No no, he never learned to read, because he already knew there was such a thing as conveying information.
Re:Illegal (Score:5, Informative)
There is a lot that would be destroyed with a blast from such a HERF gun. Wifi interfaces and bluetooth devices especially like it. That is why it is usually illegal (and stupid) to use a microwave oven with a damaged containment.
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Of course you then just fly the drones with escort drones and when they detect a CREWS attack you whack a hellfire equipped to home on radiation to kill the attacker - you could probably automate this or just have a big red button next to the d
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Re: Illegal (Score:2)
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So the distributor wouldn't stop working?
You may be able to cook the coil, but probably not the distributor. You would likely need enough energy to melt the sheet metal in the body of the car to fry an old distributor. It might be possible to fuse the points, but that would be enough energy to bbq the passanger.
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I think it's mostly meant as a contrast to a tank, airplaine or any regular car, which are not vulnerable to this type of weapon.
Who says they are not vulnerable? They are to varying degrees.
In fact, each of these items you mention are *tested* or have design tolerance to such weapons. The military pays close attention to such things when they buy them and I've seen the results of testing on commercially available cars.
The REAL issue here is how vulnerable drones are to disruptions in communications and navigation data that flows over RF based links. That is the reason we don't want to be solely dependent on them.
Re:Illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
The impresssssion I got was the article was talking mostly about hobby grade quadracopters, with perhaps a webcam controlled by a 2.4 GHz hobbiest remote controller, not military grade UAVs; a few may have been commercial grade units marketed for industrial or law enforcement use.
Firing up a transmitter powerfull enough to jam a military grade drone flying over a battlefield is the shurest way I know of to find out if Allah realy has 72 virgins waiting for you in the promised land.
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the point is, duh, UAVs are aircraft and are similar to any modern aircraft in their susceptibilities.
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The amazing part here is there doesn't seem to be much basic 'offline' intelligence built into them so that if control signals are scrambled or lost it can fly straight and level until conditions improve.
Re:Illegal (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about all UAVs but the U.S. military ones are programmed to fly home if they get confused. Dunno how they find home if they lose GPS but at least they thought about the issue.
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"I don't know about all UAVs but the U.S. military ones are programmed to fly home if they get confused."
Just like some old people, drones don't always know that they are confused.
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Oh, that's strange "HOME" seems to be right in the middle of that convoy... Oh well, just following my orders, sir!
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I don't know about all UAVs but the U.S. military ones are programmed to fly home if they get confused. Dunno how they find home if they lose GPS but at least they thought about the issue.
Or they thought about how to market the product. Doesn't mean there's actually any functionality there.
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Navigate via landmarks, probably.
You don't actually need GPS to find someplace, it's just a lot easier and more accurate.
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Dunno how they find home if they lose GPS
I have only thought about this for five seconds, but here is my solution: Use a $5 magnetic compass to maintain a constant heading until you are far enough from the jammer to pick up the GPS signal again. Then use GPS to fly home.
Re:Illegal (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about all UAVs but the U.S. military ones are programmed to fly home if they get confused. Dunno how they find home if they lose GPS but at least they thought about the issue.
Inertial Navigation Systems [wikipedia.org]. Not as accurate as GPS, but good enough to at least not land in enemy territory. And hypothetically by the time you got within a few miles of the base, the GPS would be back online.
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This is a fairly solved problem, actually. Serious navigation systems continuously estimate their performance, and have redundant sensors/etc. When an airliner is approaching an airport via clouds the pilot will not attempt the approach if the navigation system reports that its accuracy isn't sufficient to guarantee the avoidance of obstacles (the required performance gets tighter as you get closer to the ground, up to the max of Cat III ILS which basically can land a plane with no visibility at all which
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If they're not protected against RF then it doesn't matter how much offline intelligence you build in, because it will still get scrambled by HERF. You have to not only consider how much noise your design will generate, but what kind of electrical noise in your circuit will be generated by excessive radio noise. If you've bought an Arduino and an IMU off the shelf you have none of that.
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You will get intelligent drones that can fly standalone, without any remote control. From there is is a very small step to automate the "kill human"decision as well
Termintor drones are not as far away as you might think.
The other solution is not to make them more resistant to such attacks, but to make them so cheap you do not have to worry to loose a drone. You just pcik up a new one, use like one uses other munition/rockets.
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What does 'illegal' have to due with the topic of discussion? Are you claiming a general rule like "For any given X, of course you can do X if you allow illegal stuff"?
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Yes, of course there are illegal tools that can down them.
You can actually legally own a Bofors L/60 towed anti aircraft autocannon in the US. Drones are vulnerable to one of those too, along with pretty much everything else less beefy than a main battle tank.
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I think you have to fix it so that it only operates in semi-automatic mode, don't you?
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The assumption, which I hold to be quite valid, is that as with all other government weapons systems, the fear is that they are to be used on the people of the U.S. As they continue to pass laws which enable them to do so, the concern deepens. And I'm somewhat left confused about any law that has ever been written and simply not implemented. Laws start with a desire or need to address a concern. Lately, it has been about enabling the government to do more than they have been allowed to do in the past.
In
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That started with Ronnie Raygun's War On Some Drugs, when he decided that posse comitus didn't apply to anti-drug operations.
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million-dollar sol-air missiles (which they do not have).
Who's launching missiles from the sun? And at such a low cost?
UAV's vulnerable to directed-energy weapons? (Score:2)
Re:UAV's vulnerable to directed-energy weapons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Beautifully put, and correct.
However:
New Zealand security researcher Stuart MacIntosh told delegates at the Kiwicon 7 conference in Wellington that some vulnerable drone technology designed in the hobby space had trickled down into use by police and commercial operators.
Which makes it notable. Before you use a consumer-oriented item for more serious use, you need to evaluate its fitness for purpose.
Of course, you might go ahead and use it anyway - that's what risk assessment is all about.
Re:UAV's vulnerable to directed-energy weapons? (Score:4, Insightful)
Beautifully put, and correct.
However:
New Zealand security researcher Stuart MacIntosh told delegates at the Kiwicon 7 conference in Wellington that some vulnerable drone technology designed in the hobby space had trickled down into use by police and commercial operators.
Which makes it notable. Before you use a consumer-oriented item for more serious use, you need to evaluate its fitness for purpose.
Of course, you might go ahead and use it anyway - that's what risk assessment is all about.
Also true...but honestly, I can't recall the last time cops had to worry about crooks with HERF guns. It would be a lot easier, safer and cheaper for the bad guys to simply *shoot* at the drones in these situations. We're not talking about flights of Predators or Reapers flying thousands of feet up, backed by a Gorgon's Eye implementation. We're talking about what's basically a glorified RC copter flying at hundreds of feet.
I will now coin a new acronym..."KEDW," or "Kinetic Energy Directed Weapon," also known as a "gun," and go speak to a conference about how it is a much worse threat than this...because not only can it shoot down police drones, it can hurt people too!
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I think anyone who has ever been bird hunting (or clay pigeon shooting) knows exactly how hard it is to hit small moving targets hundreds of feet in the air.
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More like dozens of feet.
Not hundreds.
Bird & clay pigeon shooting is typically small gauge shotguns, whose range is dozens of feet. Not hundreds.
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For YOU maybe...[spins six-shooter]
Re:UAV's vulnerable to directed-energy weapons? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you can get a drone within 50 yards of me, I could possibly hit it with the shotgun. Outside of that range, things get a whole lot more difficult and it's going to be impossible outside of about 100 yards. Trying to hit a drone using a rifle is about the best you can hope for beyond 100 yards, and those shots would be one in a million.
So, if the drone is flying higher than about 150 feet it is unlikely to be in danger from any kinetic weapon carried by the perp.
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What about you and a couple of your friends armed with AKs?
If I recall correctly that kind of shooting is effective up to 600 meters (concentrated firing).
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If it's a police UAV it will be a standard model.
It will also most probably be short range cause unlike the army and NSA police needs a warrant to snoop on half the city at once, which one of those flying at 1000 feet would probably be doing.
Also, if it's gonna cover an area effectively it will have to be capable of hovering in urban environments without crashing into buildings when wind hits it from one side AND should it fall down on unsuspecting civilians it should not be able to crush and kill anyone.
Al
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Effective against what? A Parrot AR Drone (the hobby UAV under test) is about 57cm across. Much less than that side-on.
That's a pretty tiny target at 600 meters distance.
So? (Score:3)
Bullets are also tiny - but there are many of them.
And as long as the coordinates of some of them overlap with those "57 cm across"...
5 guys with AKs can create a bullet ridden area that will quickly cover those 57 cm and more.
Don't think of it as sharpshooting - think flak.
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What about you and a couple of your friends armed with AKs?
If I recall correctly that kind of shooting is effective up to 600 meters (concentrated firing).
It would be extremely effective.
*if* you concentrate the AK47 fire at the personnel in the portable trailer containing the drone-operator control stations, and/or their families in the case of a domestic conflict. It makes it very hard to concentrate on targeting/killing civilians with a drone if you're worried sick about your entire family being executed and your home being burned to the ground while you're busy.
There are no "rules" in a domestic civil war and military personnel's families would be high on
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I think I saw such a scenario in one of those Mel Gibson/Danny Glover documentaries.
Or was it one with Arnold Braunschweiger?
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If you could hit it, I suppose you are right. Hitting a moving drone with a 50 cal is going to require some real unusual shooting skills.
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I think anyone who has ever been bird hunting (or clay pigeon shooting) knows exactly how hard it is to hit small moving targets hundreds of feet in the air.
Yes, but two things. One, drones of the sort described in the report don't move around much when being used, and definitely not at the speed of a clay pigeon. Two, you get more than one shot at it. Three, you can use a scope, or a shotgun with a smaller or larger choke as you like. Four, even if you miss, just shooting at the drone may be enough to get them to move it, thus succeeding in impeding its usefulness.
And five, the difficulty of shooting a moving object with a projectile is less than that of s
It's not exactly a competition in accuracy... (Score:2)
...with a single bullet.
They will more likely be willing to simultaneously empty several clips of several automatic rifles in the general direction of the target.
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Kinetic Armored Projectile Ordinance Weapon. KAPOW!!!
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anti-drone warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
It was only a matter of time before anti-drone warfare came about. This happens with every new piece of weaponry, the quest for the anti-weapon. They don't call it an arms race for no reason.
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This research is not invalid, but it's akin to showing how you can listen in on some walkie-talkies from radio shack. There certainly are analogous concerns in designing military command & control systems, but they are about 70 years past this leve
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Isn't that kind of like saying that the average commercial building has surveillance cameras vulnerable to a water gun filled with paint? This stuff is designed to watch traffic, or survey land, and so on. If they need to suppress a riot they'll probably send in the APCs.
Directed energy weapons (Score:2)
I don't know of anything invulnerable to directed-energy weapons. From diamonds and steel to civilization and hope, everything is vulnerable to a quasar's polar jet.
I didn't expect UAVs to survive, alone in the emptiness of space after the cataclysmic event disintegrated the entire solar system.
Well, almost alone. There would be Nokia phones too, of course.
Re:Directed energy weapons (Score:5, Informative)
The catch here is that these "directed energy weapons" were cheap trivialities bought off eBay and not military EW apparatus or gigantic celestial furnaces.
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The point in my post is that "Directed-Energy Weapons" is unnecessarily insufficiently precise.
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unnecessarily insufficiently precise.
Oh come on, now you're just being not unintentionally acutely obtuse.
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Calling them "directed energy weapons" in the headline was pretty stupid. They're radio jammers and spoofers. What's their output, 10W?
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"Calling them "directed energy weapons" in the headline was pretty stupid. They're radio jammers and spoofers. What's their output, 10W?"
A 1200 Watt Microwave oven emitter with a decent directional antenna is still cheaper.
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It's also bad for other electronics and illegal in most countries (EM emission limits and all that).
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Calling them "directed energy weapons" in the headline was pretty stupid. They're radio jammers and spoofers. What's their output, 10W?
That's 10,000,000,000 nanowatts!!!!
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The catch here is they are not talking about military drones. ... you can fly a radio plane near an AR drone and it will very quickly get packet loss," MacIntosh said."
From the article.
"You can walk all over [the Parrot AR Drone] with frequency-hopping spread spectrum
You can interfere with a toy.... And Slashdot tumbles farther down the FUD hole.
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With the exception of bombs that scatter shrapnel in all directions, aren't most weapons directed energy weapons?
I'll stop being pedantic before someones fist directs kinetic energy my way.
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From diamonds and steel to civilization and hope, everything is vulnerable to a quasar's polar jet.
Ah, you must be Slashdot's resident poet. I look forward to your next coffee table volume. ;-)
This is pure BullSlash. (Score:2)
First of all this article is not even talking about Military drones! ... you can fly a radio plane near an AR drone and it will very quickly get packet loss," MacIntosh said."
From the article.
""You can walk all over [the Parrot AR Drone] with frequency-hopping spread spectrum
eww you can jam a toy.... Really Slashdot you are now the National Enquire.
Kinda makes me wonder... (Score:1)
Surely our beloved overlords already have planned for and created such weapons and technology. Surely they wouldn't have spend eleventy billion dollars producing aircraft that can be downed by a 'more powerful radio'. There is probably a pilot contractor riding in each UAV as a backup. After all, un-maned != un-contractor'd.
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TFA refers to civilian UAVs and their derivatives in law enforcement and the like, not military drones.
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All the US gov needs is a tool to watch, soak up signals and use for double tap missile strikes.
All the US export market needs is a tool to watch, soak up signals and to enjoy ongoing 'parts' and 'service' contracts.
The contractors are happy with every sale, the long term contracts, the missions work out and US gov risks little in the way of new tech with any cr
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all it would really take is
1 design and build a drone that is "cheap" by DOD standards
2 as a first stage after %time% without a gps lock enable a GO HOME (use terrain recog)
3 stage 2 (after %time% X 1.N) it either A climbs to MAX HEIGHT B finds the nearest "valid target" and then it self destructs
i would of course make sure that the destruct package had a decent amount of BANG
Also vunerable to bullets (Score:5, Funny)
You could probably take a low-flying one down with a trebuchet.
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Or Flock of Seagulls for that matter... depending on how loud you cranked the sonic disruptor.
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Bad 80's hair is no reason to go flinging people at things.
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... or is it?
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Re:Also vunerable to bullets (Score:5, Informative)
The Soviet attempt to train anti-tank dogs was...less than successful. The Russians trained their dogs with their own diesel-fueled tanks, which smelled different from German gasoline-fueled tanks. In the field, they discovered that this meant they had trained the dogs to blow up Soviet tanks but not German ones.
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And I-ran (so far away) is investigating that for enhancing their anti drone program.
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Let my armies be the birds and the trees, and the rocks in the sky.
Sounds better to me this way.
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You could probably take a low-flying one down with a trebuchet.
Or have a hell of a time trying - sounds like fun!
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You could probably take a low-flying one down with a trebuchet.
With a trebuchet, you could send one in a variety of directions. :p
ALL UAV's can be taken out with direct energy..... (Score:2)
Unless they invented laser proof UAV's....
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Unless they invented laser proof UAV's....
Then we would just switch to phasers.
"Directed Energy Weapons" (Score:1)
Old school anti-drone technology (Score:2)
Just send up a territorial crow [youtube.com]!
Drone-downing Awards (Score:2)
Primitive Weaponry: bow & arrow, bola, net/sein, and rocks
Animal-Assisted: pigeons, seagulls, or trained hunting raptors (hawks, falcons, etc.).
Innovative: laser pointers, mirrors & sunlight deathrays, RC toy, other.
The Force: verbal command, hand gesture
Great Wikipedia reference (Score:2)
So thanks for the enlightenment.
But can the operator... (Score:2)
Trivia Question (Score:2)
Directed Energy Weapons?
Name a weapon that is not directed energy?
Most fall into the Kinetic verity I would think.
Poison maybe? Then again, this is probably because I really lack an understanding of how poisons generally work. After all that's a woman's weapon amiright? And we all know how direct they can be... ;)
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When did a directed energy weapon become a "cheap tool"?
Sorry, I initially read NERF guns... anyone can make a mistake. :)
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perhaps an omni-directed energy weapon.
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When did a GPS jammer become a directed energy weapon?
You know, when Han used his Tricorder to restimulate the active particule neutrino phase shifters, which resulted in a plasma beam that disrupts the life-support system on any craft that flies slower than 22 parsecs.
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When did a GPS jammer become a directed energy weapon?
You know, when Han used his Tricorder to restimulate the active particule neutrino phase shifters, which resulted in a plasma beam that disrupts the life-support system on any craft that flies slower than 22 parsecs.
Only if he reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.
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When it was tuned to attack a specific type of target.
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Say it aint so. A researcher proclaiming that consumer tech is susceptible to interference that it is required to be susceptible to by the fcc.
OH GAWD the humanity; sensationalism in the news!!!!!!!!
Seriously the 1st gen AR.Drone had issues not auto-crashing into walls.
The newest version (AR.Drone2.0) has a module called a flight recorder that is just a usb GPS used to program waypoints on a route or automatically send it home.
Sure you could interfere with GPS. By that same logic you could get people to tak