Airport securityDrone jamming system to protect European airports, public spaces

Airports could be equipped with technology capable of detecting and bringing down drones that stray into their air space, according to Dan Hermansen, chief technology officer of Danish anti-drone firm MyDefence.

The company has developed a drone alarm and protection system that is being installed at a number of prominent sites around Europe, including an airport. It has the potential to prevent the kind of costly disruption that hit London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports recently.

Horizon’s Richard Gray interviewed Hermansen.

Richard Gray: Why are drones posing a growing problem in our skies?
Dan Hermansen: If you go back maybe five years, that is when the first incidents started to appear. At the time, there wasn’t really anybody taking care of the airspace below normal flying level. So, if you were flying below 200 or 300 metres, no one really cared as no other aircraft were at that level unless you were close to an airport.

Over the last five years we have seen regulations come into force in different countries to make sure that drones are not flying close to areas like airports, prisons, military facilities or other critical infrastructure. But more and more people are using the technology. They are given drones as toys for Christmas, so naturally they will go out and fly them.

Gray: Is it deliberate or because people don’t know any better?
Hermansen: In some cases, it is just ignorance. People who are not aware of the rules and regulations. I think if you look at some of the recent cases at Gatwick and Heathrow (airports), this could be what has happened there. (People) want to go out and try their new toy and don’t realise they need to be at least one kilometre from an airport. Then someone reports a drone flying close to the airfield and it causes the kind of shutdowns we have seen recently.

But then there are also those people who don’t care about the regulations. This is a more worrying issue from our perspective.