1 of 1- Goose
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Drones create a New Business; Anti-drones
Dutch Firm Trains Eagles to Take Down High-Tech Prey: Drones
KATWIJK, the Netherlands — Its wings beating against a gathering breeze, the eagle moves gracefully through a cloudy sky, then swoops, talons outstretched, on its prey below.
The target, however, is not another bird but a small drone, and when the eagle connects, there is a metallic clunk. With the device in its grasp, the bird of prey returns to the ground.
At a disused military airfield in the Netherlands, hunting birds like the eagle are being trained to harness their instincts to help combat the security threats stemming from the proliferation of drones.
The birds of prey learn to intercept small, off-the-shelf drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — of the type that can pose risks to aircraft, drop contraband into jails, conduct surveillance or fly dangerously over public events.
The thought of terrorists using drones haunts security officials in Europe and elsewhere, and among those who watched the demonstration at Valkenburg Naval Air Base this month was Mark Wiebes, a detective chief superintendent in the Dutch police.
Mr. Wiebes described the tests as “very promising,” and said that, subject to a final assessment, birds of prey were likely to be deployed soon in the Netherlands, along with other measures to counter drones. The Metropolitan Police Service in London is also considering using trained birds to fight drones.
The Dutch have experimented with other methods, such as jamming drone signals, capturing drones in nets fired by defender drones or shooting them out of the sky with buckshot.
Birds of prey have the advantage of being able to bring drones safely to the ground, rather than causing them to crash, which can pose risks to those below.
“We have seen a number of incidents around airfields, and, in the end, we want to be prepared should anyone want to use a drone for an attack of some sort,” Mr. Wiebes said.
This meeting of biological skills and cutting-edge science should not be a surprise, Mr. Wiebes added. He said technology could evolve from nature, “a workbench of thousands of generations in which solutions are found for problems.”
The man who created the project, Sjoerd Hoogendoorn, a security consultant, put it more colorfully: “Mostly, the most crazy ideas work the best.”
Last edited by Goose (5/30/2016 8:14 am)
We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists.