Welcome to Las Vegas where a system capable of taking out drones via radio waves is being shown off. It makes use of high powered radio waves for disabling drones by blocking their communication and switching them off in midair. The system has been termed as ‘death ray’.
Executive vice-president of Liteye Systems, Rick Sondag, said, “If I can see it, I can kill it.” He was the person who debuted it at the Commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Expo that was held in Las Vegas last week. The company is based in Colorado and has been acting as the named distributor in US and Canada for the system since the start of 2015 by its three manufacturers; Enterprise, Chess Systems and Blighter. Sondag is hoping to sell the systems to airports and locations where national security is an issue.
He said, “The US government, like everyone else, has critical infrastructure and if they don’t feel like they can protect it, they’ll pass laws that will hamper progress and hamper current use.” According to the trio of firms, “The system may be used in remote or urban areas to prevent UAVs being used for terrorist attacks, espionage or other undesirable activities against sites with critical infrastructure. The Anti-UAV Defence System is likely to be an integral part of a wider networked surveillance and defence system. Its soft kill capabilities make it a very attractive option for both military, internal and border security forces. Where the situation demands restraint under provocation and where active, yet discrete, deterrence is required, AUDS delivers a very powerful message.”
According to Defence sources, the British-designed system termed as AUDS – Anti Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Defense System – was tested out in Scotland earlier this year and has been proven effective against drones that are remote controlled and the ones that follow pre-programmed flight paths. According to the AUDS’ manufacturers, it takes the system about 10-15 seconds for targeting and disrupting multiple drones that are in the ‘swarm attack’ formation. However, the technology has been designed so that it doesn’t affect any commercial or military aircraft that employ encrypted communications.
