Counter UAV Solutions

With the recent expansion in availability of consumer, commercial, and military-grade drones and UAVs, Counter UAV solutions have become a necessity in many applications. UAVs are a security concern throughout many organizations and sites; anyone can now purchase a drone/UAV and weaponize it or compromise sensitive information or privacy through unauthorized intrusions. Political and military figures have been targeted by UAV attacks, and false alarms at international airports have cost millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Ascendent has identified this as a key concern to our clients and our divisions alongside key third-party partners have designed Counter UAV solutions to:

Detect threats from UAVs

Identify threats from UAVs

Neutralize threats from UAVs

Detection is provided either through radar, or RF technologies. Lower cost solutions utilize RF scanners to detect the radio signals used to control many lower cost UAVs. However, the rise of “dark-drones” has begun to negate the usefulness of these devices. A dark drone is pre-programmed to follow a set path to its target, and does not rely on RF communication, making them invisible to RF detection devices. Radar detection counters this as it does not rely on any signal from the UAV, but rather actively scans for intrusions.

Once a UAV has been detected by RF signals or radar, it is usually necessary to identify it and determine whether it is an active threat or an unintentional intrusion.

This is where electro-optics systems come in. Slew-to-Cue commands from the radar or RF scanner will point the PTZ to the UAV’s location. Using a combination of visible, NIR, and thermal wavelengths an operator can inspect the target and determine whether it is a threat and how to proceed. Alternatively using AI classification this process can be automated or bypassed if the airspace is protected and any intrusion is a threat.

UAV mitigation

UAV mitigation can be accomplished by a variety of methods; RF jamming, capturing the UAV, or actively targeting and destroying the UAV. RF jamming similarly to RF detection is only useful if there is an RF signal controlling the UAV. Most UAVs will have a landing protocol that takes over in case of the RF signal being jammed or in some cases may crash.

Capturing the UAV

Capturing the UAV can be accomplished by deploying a counter UAV drone which seeks out the target UAV and deploys a netgun to capture and neutralize it’s target. The captured UAV may then be inspected for identification of the operator and any weaponization.

targeting the UAV

Actively targeting the UAV can be accomplished through traditional projectile weapons or using laser energy weapons. Ascendent has partnered with a laser weapon provider to provide a unique laser weapon solution which can actively target UAVs and does not have typically eye safety issues associated with laser weapons after they have hit their targets.