Researchers have developed a real-time approach that can help prevent incidents like the large-scale disruption at London\u2019s Gatwick Airport in 2018. Possible drone sightings at the perimeter of the airport caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge<\/a>, used a combination of statistical techniques and radar data to predict the flight path of a drone, and whether it intends to enter a restricted airspace, for instance around a civilian airport. Some of the results will be reported today (15 September) at the\u00a0Sensor Signal Processing for Defence Conference<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read full press release here<\/a>. \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Their solution could help prevent a repeat of the Gatwick incident, as it can spot any drones before they enter restricted airspace and can determine, early, if their future actions are likely to pose a threat to other aircraft. This new predictive capability can enable automated decision-making and significantly reduce the workload on drone surveillance system operators by offering actionable information on potential threats to facilitate timely and proportionate responses. Real radar data from live drone trials at several locations was used to validate the new approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we don\u2019t fully know what happened at Gatwick, the incident highlighted the potential risk drones can pose to the public if they are misused<\/p>Bashar Ahmad<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Drones have become ubiquitous over the past several years, with widespread applications in agriculture, surveying and e-commerce, among other fields. However, they can also be a nuisance or present a potential safety risk, especially with the wide availability of cheap and increasingly more capable platforms. A few days before Christmas 2018, reported drone sightings near the perimeter of Gatwick Airport caused hundreds of flights to be disrupted due to the possible risk of collision. No culprit was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile we don\u2019t fully know what happened at Gatwick, the incident highlighted the potential risk drones can pose to the public if they are misused, whether that\u2019s done maliciously or completely innocently\u201d, said paper co-author Dr Bashar Ahmad, who carried out the research while based at Cambridge\u2019s Department of Engineering. \u201cIt\u2019s crucial for future drone surveillance systems to have predictive capabilities for revealing, as early as possible, a drone with malicious intent or anomalous behaviour.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To aid with air traffic control and prevent any possible collisions, commercial airplanes report their location every few minutes. However, there is no such requirement for drones. \u201cThere needs to be some sort of automated equivalent to air traffic control for drones\u201d, said Professor Simon Godsill from Cambridge\u2019s Department of Engineering, who led the project. \u201cBut unlike large and fast-moving targets, like a passenger jet, drones are small, agile, and slow-moving, which makes them difficult to track. They can also easily be mistaken for birds, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to spot threats as early as possible, but we also need to be careful not to overreact, since closing civilian airspace is a drastic and highly disruptive measure that we want to avoid, especially if it ends up being a false alarm\u201d, said first author Dr Jiaming Liang, also from the Department of Engineering, who developed the underlying algorithms with Godsill. There are several potential ways to monitor the space around a civilian airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A typical drone surveillance solution can use a combination of several sensors, such as radar, radio frequency detectors and cameras, but it\u2019s often expensive and labour-intensive to operate. Using Bayesian statistical techniques, the Cambridge researchers built a solution that would only flag those drones which pose a threat and offer a way to prioritise them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Threat is defined as a drone that\u2019s intending to enter restricted airspace or displays an unusual flying pattern. \u201cWe need to know this before it happens, not after it happens\u201d, said Godsill. \u201cThis way, if a drone is getting too close, it could be possible to warn the drone operator. For obvious safety reasons, it\u2019s prohibited to disable a drone in civilian airspace, so the only option is to close the airspace. Our goal is to make sure airport authorities don\u2019t have to do this unless the threat is a real one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reference:<\/strong>Predictive capabilities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
False alarm<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Jiaming Liang et al. \u2018Detection of Malicious Intent in Non-cooperative Drone Surveillance<\/a>.\u2019 Paper presented at the Sensor Signal Processing for Defence conference. Edinburgh, UK. 14-15 September 2021. https:\/\/sspd.eng.ed.ac.uk\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1760,"featured_media":307299,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[8553],"tags":[42102,23592,9999,125047,33519],"location":[55977],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-308233","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital","tag-airspace","tag-cambridge","tag-drones-en","tag-gatwick","tag-safety","location-united-kingdom"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":false,"coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/arnoud-cornelissen\/","display_name":"Arnoud Cornelissen"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 15, 2021","modified":"Updated on September 15, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 15, 2021 8:49 am","modified":"Updated on September 15, 2021 8:49 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Digital<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Digital<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["airspace<\/a>","Cambridge<\/a>","drones<\/a>","Gatwick<\/a>","safety<\/a>"],"unlinked":["airspace<\/span>","Cambridge<\/span>","drones<\/span>","Gatwick<\/span>","safety<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":["pll_61419a56b0ecc<\/a>"],"unlinked":["pll_61419a56b0ecc<\/span>"],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":["United Kingdom<\/a>"],"unlinked":["United Kingdom<\/span>"],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/308233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308233"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=308233"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=308233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}