Following several incidents of unauthorised flights over public monuments in France, ACE has developed a drone capable of tracking an offending drone and shooting it down.
The prevention of unauthorised drone flights over sensitive areas has become a national challenge. ECA Group, a leading robotics company for more than thirty years and Groupe Gorgé subsidiary, recently made a major contribution to this struggle by developing a drone able to locate, identify and track offending operators and aircraft.
The system was developed with a partner. It is based on the use of ECA Group‘s IT180 drone, including several transponders. After detecting the offending drone through land-based resources, the strategy consists of activating the IT180 drone: first, it will locate the operator using its on-board technology; second, it will approach and identify the operator using its cameras.
Unlike the solutions available until now, which focus mainly on the neutralization of drones in flight, ECA Group has developed a solution that makes it impossible for malicious operators to disappear. This new system enables security forces to approach them discreetly and to catch them in the act of committing the offence, while collecting all the evidence required for future prosecution.
The system has already been assessed twice by French government authorities, who were fully satisfied. It located and identified operators within a 700-meter radius in under a minute after detecting their drones in flight over a sensitive area.
“After detecting drone offender by fixed ground facilities, the strategy is to involve the IT180 drone, initially, locates the driver thanks to its embedded technology then, in a second step, comes close to proceed its identification by its cameras, “says the group. This “allows police to approach them discreetly and apprehend them in flagrante delicto situation while collecting all the necessary evidence for subsequent prosecutions,” says ECA.
Source: Press Release