Week 4: How Drones Broke Airspace Security

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Hello Everyone! This week, I began designing range experiments to the test the limitations of the Drone Net and its software. Because I am still learning about the advanced software engineering, the majority of my recent contributions have been in experimental design.

For week 4, I will answer the following questions:

How do we currently secure our airspace?

It might be prudent to discuss the concept of 'airspace' before anything else. Airspace is defined as any space, immediately above the surface of the earth, available for use by aerial systems, such as planes, balloons, drones, etc. 
This guide describes different types of airspace and how they are defined.

In order to prevent collisions between aircraft, air traffic control (ATC) operators monitor the airspace and direct air traffic around the clock. In general, the tools used by ATC are the only tools available to secure our airspace.

  • Primary Radar (PR) is the most well-known type of radar. An ATC tower sends out pulses of radio waves and "listens" for the signal to bounces off something. Based on the deviations in the reflected radio waves, PR can determine the general location of large objects. However, PR does not provide any way to determine the aircraft's type, altitude, velocity or appearance.
  • Secondary Radar (SR) fixes some of the issues with primary radar, in a somewhat backward manner. SR works when the plane sends all its information (position, altitude, velocity, aircraft type) directly to the ATC tower via direct radio communication.

Why doesn't this work for drones?


In theory, primary radar could be used to detect objects of almost any size. However, if radar is sensitive enough to detect a drone, it's sensitive enough to detect birds, trees, clouds and all other objects of similar size. This would make viewing a radar display very difficult, so modern radars are designed to detect only large objects. Therefore, primary radar cannot reasonably detect and identify drones.

Also, ADS-B is a system that relies on the drone to correctly and honestly report its position and identity. In cases where the drone's GPS malfunctions or the drone is hostile, neither primary nor secondary radar systems can be utilized to locate the drone. That is where the Drone Net steps in to detect and identify the drone.

Next week, I will discuss the unique features of the Drone Net that allow it to act as a solution to the problems of modern ATC systems.

P.S. If anyone reading this wants to learn in-depth info about ATC and airspace management, just let me know.

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