The flight over Monday Fort Brégançon proves that the threat can come from the sky. The miniature camera was neutralized by a “jammer rifle”, tested recently at Castellet by the gendarmerie. Eagles are also used to intercept drones.
Scenario of polar reality? Venezuelan authorities claim that President Maduro was the target of an assassination attempt by two explosive-charged drones on August 4 during a military parade. Last Monday, the neutralization of a miniaturized device over Fort Brégançon, showed that such a threat was not to be taken lightly.
Research is conducted to find the craft, a priori harmless, whose weight is estimated at 500 g. It is submerged by several tens of meters, two hundred meters off the place where Emmanuel Macron and his wife spend their holidays. That late Wednesday afternoon, he could not be found. The gendarmes are responsible for finding his user, presumably a paparazzi or a curious.
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But the incident reminds that the danger can fall from the sky at any time. The experts in the fight against terrorism say they are concerned about the control of such technology by Daesh jihadists. In October 2016, in Iraq, a trapped drone wounded two French parachute commandos. The authorities are therefore working on the most appropriate parades to enforce overflight prohibitions, developing physical, technological, and, where necessary, animal measures.
Physical devices. All the specialists say it. To neutralize a drone, it is better to avoid the use of firearms, whose effectiveness is made random by the growing miniaturization of devices and their speed of movement (20 to 60 km / h). Even if it remains fairly basic, the technique of the net seems more appropriate: it aims to hinder the rotors of the drone to stop its propulsion and cause its fall. This net can be deployed from launchers of variable range installed on the ground. But it can also be propelled from the air by “hunter drones”, like the prototype tested by the Koreans at the Olympics in Pyeongchang last February. This technology has the advantage of neutralizing the target by catching it, thus avoiding a vertical fall on the crowd.
Technological devices. The drones are controlled remotely by radio waves (often wi-fi type), ensuring the connection between the remote control and the device. They are therefore vulnerable to cell phone jammer these same waves. In Brégançon, currently prohibited from overflight by any aircraft less than 1,000 m, this technological parade demonstrated Monday its effectiveness. According to the specialized magazine Essor, to cut the wings of the apparatus, the Republican Guard probably used a … “rifle interfering”. One of them was tested recently at the French Grand Prix du Castellet. Another angle of attack: disrupt the satellite signal of the drone (GPS type for example), to disorientate it. These technology concentrates operating thanks to the computer science, the war of the sky will also pass by the “Hacking” (remote hacking) in order to take a control or by the destruction of its electromagnetic components.