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Comment by brenden2 | Hacker News Reader

Startup idea: an accurate weapon for destroying drones that are flying in places they shouldn't be. Has anyone tried doing something like this?

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It's relatively easy to shoot down a drone, you can do it with birdshot. The problem would be falling debris and the safety hazard that represents. Might be a moot point in cases of fire, but in general that would be a pretty specialized startup around a task that a basic shotgun would already excel at.

Birdshot is effective against drones, but only within a few hundred meters:

https://www.northeastshooters.com/xen/threads/how-far-will-b...

There's a very big difference between the maximum distance an individual pellet of birdshot will go (which is still likely less than 300 yards at its maximal ballistic trajectory)and the "effective range" which is usually defined something like 'the maximum range at which accurate fire will produce a 50% hit probability'.

For birdshot, that's usually considered to be around 40 yards for a bird. A drone would probably be similar.

you can do it with birdshot.

You can also do with with a bird.

https://time.com/4675164/drone-hunting-eagles/

(Awesome picture in the link of an eagle sinking its talons into a drone mid-flight.)

It is inhumane to use birds to take down drones. The rotors can easily mame or kill even a large bird

My intent isn't to engage in argument with you, but I'm curious, by that line of reasoning do you feel the same about K9 dogs used to take down criminals who may be armed?

Not the OP, but K9 is the alternative to using a human for the same purpose. Birds in this case were suggested as an alternative to using a $1 shotgun shell.

The birds are theoretically a lot more capable. Birdshot from a shotgun won't work well if the drone is trying to avoid it by flying a bit too high, too far away, too fast, etc. A bird of prey stands to be a lot more successful if the drone pilot isn't trying to make things easy.

The risk to the bird shouldn't be ignored. It seems to me the use of birds in this way is most defensible when human lives are plausibly on the line, such as when drones are negatively impacting firefighting efforts.

The first time I tried to fly a drone I broke all four of its rotors and _scratched the glass_ on my patio door. A bird would almost certainly be severely hurt by the rotors. You can't seriously make the argument in favor of using birds. In fact, if there is an argument to be made here it's in favor of the drone immediately powering down the rotors if it notices a bird approaching.

It seems plausible to me that a bird of prey could learn how to attack drones from safe angles; I don't think a bird would necessarily be hurt by the drone, but I concede that it's a highly possible outcome.

Restricting the use of anti-drone birds to scenarios where human lives are on the line seems like a reasonable compromise, and I do seriously make this argument. I'd further consider it reasonable to hold the drone pilot legally accountable for any harm to the bird.

Not to mention that you can't use birdshot in certain areas because the bbs are going to come back down and you don't want to hurt a dozen people because you have to take down a drone in the middle of NYC.

Birdshot is nice when you're in the middle of nowhere and no people are downrange, but you shouldn't fire a fucking gun when people are down range.

Edit: I should mention falling birdshot is fairly harmless. But I'm thinking lower angles, high rise buildings, or when you're taking down a drone near an airport (which is one of the major concerns). There are people and sensitive objects down range. And even with birdshot you should never shoot when there are people down range. Just be responsible with your guns.

I'll take the bait and argue that using dogs as weapons is animal abuse.

Falling birdshot is harmless, it has a low terminal velocity. When it falls on dry leaves in the fall, it sounds like rain.

The falling drone might hurt though. It conceivably might even start another fire if the battery took some damage.

>It conceivably might even start another fire if the battery took some damage.

What you're saying is that all drones should be grounded if the fire risk is high.

Maybe? I'm not sure. I don't know enough about the typical failure modes of a drone to say whether fire is a likely outcome. But I think the battery pack getting blasted by a shotgun stands a good chance of bringing out the worst failure modes.

DO NOT DO THIS.

1: Missed bullets/shot may kill your friends and neighbors [0]. Especially in densely populated sub/urban environments.

2: Many drones use LiPo batteries. When punctured, LiPo batteries may catch fire [1]. You stand a good chance of starting even more fires if you shoot at drones.

Congrats, you have likely made things worse.

If you are thinking of shooting at a drone: STOP.

Put down the firearm and pick up the phone.

Call the police. Then call your state and local representatives[2]. Then call your neighbors. Organize and vote.

Pass laws, not ammo.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070928000018/http://ats.ctsnet...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUFxlf4fXjo

[2] https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

Falling birdshot is not going to harm anyone unless it gets in their eye. It's like tiny pebbles, not a slug which you're probably thinking of.

I agree, birdshot is very unlikely to harm anyone. All missed shot are unlikely to harm, in fact. Larger things like buckshot would be more likely to harm others, though still it's very low. Actual bullets like 45, 223, 22, or 9mm, accounting for ~50% (1/2) of most sold calibers in the US in 2015 [0], will do some real damage. Shotgun gauges only account for ~12% (1/8) of the calibers sold.

All said, it is still MUCH safer to not shoot at a drone at all. Let the local police take cafe of it.

Heck, get a super-soaker or something kind of water-ballon slingshot, if you must.

[0] http://knowledgeglue.com/what-are-the-most-popular-calibers-...

Surely it goes without saying that private citizens should not discharge firearms aimed at another person's property? I mean literally there is no need to say it, as it's extraordinarily unlikely that the person you're responding to or anyone else on this site is foolish enough to do that. Yeah, there is a YouTube video here and there of some idiot shooting at a drone. But it seems unlikely that this is a rampant phenomenon, seeing as how it's illegal and probably a felony in most places. E.g. I don't know if a drone counts as an "aircraft" under NY state law, but it's a class E felony to discharge a firearm at an unoccupied aircraft here (1 1/2-4 years in prison).

Edit: oops, 18 USC 32 imposes a maximum of twenty years for sabotage of an aircraft anywhere in the USA, and apparently the USG has been interpreting this to include drones. Note that this law also applies to local and state law enforcement. Only the feds are allowed to deploy anti-aircraft technology.

https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/88696-before-you-p...

To be fair, the person that I was replying to literally advocates using firearms to take down drones as a viable solution. I agree with you, it is a insane thing to do. It seems that for drones, the laws may need to extend to state and local law enforcement, not just federal.

The comment you replied to observed that it is possible to use a firearm to shoot down a drone. It did not "advocate" for using firearms.

I didn't advocate shooting down drones. It should not be done under normal circumstances due to the falling debris hazard. But of all the ways to shoot down a drone (assuming it were necessary to protect public safety), using a shotgun is probably the safest, and I agree this should be done by police. Unless perhaps you're a firefighter trying to dump a helicopter full of water on a fire, and then I think most reasonable people would make an exception there too.

> Has anyone tried doing something like this?

Yes, lots. There's active and open gov solicitations for solutions. It's enough of a problem that the major news media have been covering it for a few years. Talking about solutions like eagles, RF jammers, net guns, etc.

I’ve been wanting to get some of these 12-gauge net cartridges [0]. They really seem more like a novelty unfortunately.

[0] https://www.budk.com/12-Gauge-Skynet-Drone-Defense--3-Pack-3...

Like, a rifle? Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. The gun space isn't exactly rife with opportunity for a disruptive startup.

Rifles aren’t a desirable drone-interception tool. For one thing, it’s hard to hit a small moving target that may be hundreds of meters up in the air. Overshoot is also a huge problem - unlike birdshot pellets which fall harmlessly to the ground after 300 meters or so, rifle bullets can travel at lethal velocity for several kilometers. Even if you hit the drone, your bullet may keep traveling.

it’s hard to hit a small moving target that may be hundreds of meters up in the air.

I wonder if a local skeet-shooting club could be deployed for this sort fo thing. Certainly they have the practice. But I'm not sure about the range.

You don't use a rifle for skeet shooting either...

I don't think you need a .50 cal to take out a drone; a 22 would be fine and basically doesn't have the overshoot problems you described.

.22 LR fired at 45 degrees will travel for at least a mile, according to ballistic calculators and the warning on my ammo box.

There was a marketing campaign for a jamming gun to essentially disable drones. (I imagine some would just float statically though)

There’s already a bunch of products that do this. In Singapore the police use drones that shoot nets to catch other drones. The net shooting drone handles tracking and targeting, and the net is tethered, so it doesn’t fall to the ground. The military has laser technology designed for this purpose, and there’s various radio jammer solutions on the market. Also, police in the Netherlands use trained eagles.

There’s plenty of existing solutions to this problem already.

Anduril just recently announced their drone-interceptor drone:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20898931/anduril-anvil-dr...

Anduril working hard on this concept https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/10/03/palmer-luckey-anduri...

Are drones' RC controllers any more sophisticated than regular old-skool ones? If not (if the communication protocol still lacks encryption and authentication), they could easily be intercepted and destroyed by sending them to the ground. Also, the source of radio transmission can probably easily be located by appropriately trained "drone hunters". It does mean that not all of the responders can deal with the catastrophe at hand, but a few stiff penalties would make drones less frequent in disaster areas.

If it's 2.4 Ghz, then even the straight RC systems use some form of spread-spectrum frequency hopping. Newer variants include some limited forms of error checking, and most drone controllers have a return-to-launch-site feature that can be enabled if they lose contact with the controller.

Only slightly more advanced drones can fly a pre-programmed course without talking to the transmitter at all.

Thank you for the info!

Yes! People have trained large birds to do this as well!

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hawk+catching+a+drone&ia=videos&ia...

relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CzURm7OpAA ("Knocking my neighbors kids cruddy drone offline")

A ton of it, from having other drones capture the hostile ones with nets, to disrupting the hostile drones RF signals to force it into landing.

Been a bit of a fad a while ago when drones first became somewhat mainstream.

Disrupting the control signal doesn’t force a landing. Even on super locked down DJI drones you can program several actions, including continuing a waypoint mission.

Jammers are a moronic idea for this task. They cause an unpredictable response and increase risk.

You might wanna take those issues up to the people actually working on these things [0], I only shared what I remembered about startups working on the problem.

[0] https://newatlas.com/droneshield-dronegun-mkiii-jamming-dron...

They are aware of the limitations, read the carefully worded marketing on that page:

"When on target, they can prompt a drone to land safely on the spot or return to its point of takeoff, while cutting the video livestream back to the operator immediately."

Just because someone is making a product doesn't mean the product isn't stupid. I remember there was a mob making another anti-drone 'gun' which jammed GPS. That didn't end well for them.

Unless the target drone is actively being used in a hostile manner (as opposed to idiots flying where they shouldn't be), then removing the operator's control of the drone without establishing another means of control makes the situation more dangerous.

You mean a gun or missile? Unlikely in a populated area. There are several companies that sell equipment that's promised to jam these drones, however.

I think an attack drone would work well.

The military has been doing this for a long time.

Google “drone defense systems”

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