Drone’s will be making the news more and more this year. With everything from having to register drones in the USA to legal rulings involving drones, last year had everything. One topic of particular interest was not the before or after of a drone flight, but how would you stop one in use? A team at Michigan Tech think they may have an answer in their Drone Vs. Drone concept.
After the news that snipers were protecting crowds at the World Cup from drones, Mo Rastgarr of Michigan Tech University thought there had to be better ways. Along with a team of students, Rastgaar started building in late 2014, taking only two months to build their first prototype system.
The new system involves a drone who is equipped with a net gun. An in flight a drone is a dangerous thing, and while progress has been made in taking down drones mid-flight, such as with the anti-drone rifle, taking down drones tend to mean you have falling machinery. The net gun system Rastgaar and his team have created would allow a drone to not only be immobilized but also taken away, possibly for the police to then use for tracking down the owner.
In the video below you can see the concept in action, they even included the invading drone’s viewpoint just to add a little Hollywood to the video.
While not the first anti-drone equipped drone, this prototype system does seem to have some promise from the video and with places like Tokyo creating a squad just for anti-drone responsibilities, you can tell that people are getting more and more concerned about the misuse of this technology. Events like the power cut in Hollywood that was caused by a drone showing how little people have to accept responsibility for their use for this technology.
