Officially named ‘Unmanned Aerial Systems’, drone use has grown significantly in the last few years – with commercial applications, for example in insurance and agriculture, increasing and many private users purchasing drones for recreational purposes. In fact, Insider Intelligence predicts consumer drone shipments will hit 29 million by 2021.
But with great power comes great responsibility and unfortunately for some, power has the potential to corrupt. Drones are increasingly being used to spy, invade privacy, smuggle drugs and disrupt, with some activities even putting lives at risk.
You may remember December of 2018 when over 1,000 flights were cancelled and more than 140,000 passengers left stranded because of drone sightings. Whether it was deliberate or a genuine accident remains a mystery, but this won’t be the first or last occurrence of a potentially malicious drone attack. Other incidents, less disruptive, have also been reported such as owners using drones to spy on sports like football and horse racing. Did you know there is a two-second gap between a live horse race and the action being transmitted on TV? This opens up a whole new black market for gamblers looking to hedge their bets at the horse races during live betting.
As the use of UAS increases around the world, there also comes a need for counter UAS (C-UAS). These intelligent systems detect and intercept unmanned aircraft to stop disruptive drone activity.
Chelton’s specialist microwave antennas are used in counter UAS systems, giving commercial companies a sense of added security and privacy. What are the chances now of airports being closed for days or potentially fatal near-misses, of secret spying on infrastructure and selling of information for monetary gain? Much lower!
Most counter UAS systems depend on the effective use of radio frequencies and all antennas used within the system need to be designed to carry out the desired mitigation techniques whether that’s jamming, monitoring or spoofing.
(By the way: as well as counter UAS, Chelton also design and manufacture antennas for drones and UAS for private security use. This means we’ve seen both sides of the fence – and we really know what goes into a UAS and what is needed to combat it.)
Chelton offer a wide range of antennas for countering the unlawful use of drones and the particular combination of such antennas will depend on our customers’ requirements – including frequency range, weight and power as well as the counter measures to be used, such as jamming, spoofing, surveillance and direction finding.
One thing you can be assured of is our counter UAS range of antennas comprises four main types which can be configured for a multitude of scenarios.
Our antennas have been specially designed and engineered to meet our customers’ toughest counter UAS challenges – bringing together the experience of top-level talents and decades of technological excellence. Remember, when you play the Game of Drones, you either fall or fly. So why not leave it to a team that has secured multiple successes in the world’s most demanding environments?
For general surveillance and high-power jamming. Multiple omni-directional antenna can be phased for direction finding arrays.
High gain and enhanced efficiency, as well as reduced interference with nearby systems.
High gain from a small-sized unit. Perfect for higher frequencies in monitoring.
Covering multiple bands within a single unit and providing a powerful combination of features.
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