Irruption of a swarm of drones carrying an explosive charge or triggering of a formal cyberattack against the headquarters of the Villacoublay air base (Yvelines) which will monitor the skies of Paris: as the opening of the Olympic festivities approaches , the Air Force has listed eighteen scenarios that could be faced by the fifteen complete anti-drone systems installed in Paris and Marseille. Thanks to the deployment of this sophisticated equipment, the sensitive sites which will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) this summer can be immersed in a “bubble” capable of repelling any intrusion.
How can we protect a large-scale event like the JOPs from the threat of malicious drones? The answer is both simple and complex. Security forces can rely primarily on “heavy devices” installed in a specific location. An unmanned aircraft can be detected by direction finding (to determine in which direction it is heading), from its electronic footprint captured by equipment well known to the military or even by using highly advanced radar.
However, nothing is more difficult than achieving a safe and immediate identification of a machine several kilometers away. At this distance, the radar signature of a small quadcopter can easily be confused with that of a bird, despite the use of artificial intelligence. However, if it is not immediately identified as a police or accredited media drone, the suspect aircraft will be the target of magnetic jamming.
Great means of last resort
These solutions are less effective when the aircraft is in scheduled flight, because there is then no link with a remote pilot which could allow it to go back to the latter. Certain precautions must also be observed, because disrupting a drone’s GPS signal without being very precise risks affecting other nearby users, such as “friendly” drones, police or emergency services.
If the aircraft manages to approach, it will be dealing with what industrialists and the military modestly call “effectors”, in other words weapons allowing immediate neutralization. We can cite the anti-drone rifle – the police one weighs 12 kg and costs 17,000 or 30,000 euros each depending on the model – which will “spray” the suspect drone(s) with a more powerful signal than that received from the remote pilot. Depending on how it has been programmed, the targeted aircraft will hover, land or return to its base.
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