The second day of the National Public Safety UAS Conference in VA began this morning with a series of sessions on a few of the most important issues facing the general public safety community. One among those issues is the usage of counter UAS technologies to maintain unauthorized drones out of sensitive airspace, including the space over prisons where incursions have gotten more frequent.
While current counter UAS technology can detect, monitor and mitigate, the laws don’t allow anyone to interfere with an aircraft except under very specific and really limited conditions, when Department of Justice personnel could also be authorized to achieve this. Public safety agencies or private industry, no matter what infrastructure they might be answerable for protecting, usually are not authorized to take a rogue drone down.
Discussing the problem this morning was a panel of experts moderated by DJ Smith, the Virginia State Police Unmanned Aerial and CUAS Systems Program Coordinator and comprised counter UAS Hub co-architect Tom Adams, DHS cUAS Analyst Mary Rupert, and Airspace Security Coordinator of the USA Capitol Police Robert Campbell.
Dark Drones and Airspace Awareness
Air domain awareness is the highest priority of the DHS today, said Mary Rupert. “We cannot set our security network up without UTM and airspace awareness… How can we protect our airspace if we are able to’t even see what’s on the market?”
Will many agencies are currently using Aeroscope-based systems, these just aren’t enough, says Rupert. “We really want layered systems, in order that we are able to see every part – not only DJI drones.”
Dark drones – those with RF signals disabled to make them tougher to trace – are an emerging threat. Tom Adams says that to combat dark drones and other emerging trends, airspace awareness is complex. “It’s at all times going to must be a layered approach,” he said. “There’s no silver bullet. There’s nobody thing that may detect all drones… and you’ll want to also take a look at tools that show crewed aircraft.” A layered approach implies multiple technologies: ground-based tools like radar, acoustic tools, and software that may put all of that information into an comprehensible format.
Current Legislative Landscape: SB 1631
DJ Smith began the panel by stating that policy is probably the most critical aspect of cUAS today. Despite the existence of sophisticated cUAS tools, law enforcement shouldn’t be currently authorized to mitigate drone threats – and there shouldn’t be a current process in place to find out how best to reply to drone threats and define prosecutable offenses.
Mary Rupert says that the legislative landscape around cUAS is in flux. “It changes depending upon who you ask on what day,” she says. Currently, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are the one agencies that may conduct advanced drone detection and mitigation. Inside those agencies, only certain departments have authorization under narrow constraints, and that authorization have to be continually renewed by extension. “That’s obviously insufficient,” said Rupert
Senate Bill 1631, currently introduced within the Senate, could help to expand authorities. SB 1631 identifies 3 major gaps in current authority:
- gives TSA the power to proactively protect airports from drone threats;
- grants critical Infrastructure providers akin to power plants or chemical facilities the authority to utilize advanced drone detection;
- creates a pilot program for law enforcement to execute counter UAS authority.
DJ Smith points out that SB 1631 calls moreover for a system of national reporting, which could help protect the nation from a significant terrorist incident. “Looking back at 9/11, we all know that missed a few of the small things: small things that may need indicated that there was going to be an incident in the event that they had been put together.” National reporting on drone incidents: whether or not they are several incidents using the identical drone, or several similar incidents in various areas, could also help to point a bigger situation.
“Drones are low cost, they’re easy… and if we aren’t connecting the small incidents along with national reporting, we’re going to be missing the small things,” said Smith.
While the laws – and the threats – are evolving, one of the simplest ways for law enforcement agencies and people protecting critical infrastructure to remain current and educate themselves is to work together, the panel agrees. “The Counter UAS is sweet, the authority is sweet – but its the relationships which might be going to assist us get through this,” says Robert Campbell.
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