Podcast: Dedrone targets illegal drone flights

Jeff Lee
Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect, the podcast of cargo facts, the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I’m Jeff Lee, editor of cargo facts and it’s Friday, the 10th of January. As the use of drones becomes more widespread, it is increasingly important to regulate and protect the airspace to make sure that all these drones are operating lawfully. This week, my colleague deputy editor Yael Katzwer talked to Mary-Lou Smulders, chief marketing officer and head of government affairs at airspace security specialist Dedrone, about addressing unauthorized drone activity, as well as compliance and enforcement. Take a listen.

Yael Katzwer
Last month, there was a drastic spike in drone sightings in New Jersey and New York specifically, which prompted the FAA to publish flight restrictions over certain areas. In addition to flight restrictions, what are some of the most effective counter drone tools, actions and technologies?

Mary-Lou Smulders
So before I dive into what some of the most effective technologies are, I just want to spend a moment on the incidence itself. If that’s okay with you.

Yael Katzwer
Yeah, definitely.

Mary-Lou Smulders
So it certainly got a lot of news that is true, but what I think the bigger story is that it’s happening every single day where drones are flying where they should not be, from a legal perspective, in fact, until the temporary flight restrictions were put into place over New Jersey, The ones you mentioned, it was perfectly legal for them to fly there. What the FAA mandate is is to create a secure and efficient national airspace, and when they think of it from an efficiency perspective, safety we all understand, right? We don’t want airplanes running into each other, drones falling out of the sky. But the efficient bit is that we really use our national airspace to its most productive extent. And so what you saw again, until the temporary flight restrictions were put in place, was perfectly legal flights, if they were drones, which we can get into that in a minute. In what the bigger story was, in my opinion, is that every single day there are literally hundreds of illegal drone flights, which is a very narrow definition. From a legal perspective, you’re either too close to an airport. We understand that’s not good. You are flying too high. There is a height restriction for drones to lower the risk of collision with crude aircraft. Or you are flying in one of the very few and small, true no flight zones for drones, like the National Capital Region. We have at D drone, a nationwide drone detection network, pre installed across over 52 cities in the US. And we recorded over 1 million, almost 1.2 million drone violating flights, ones that were truly illegal, like scary flights. And so

Yael Katzwer
Over what period of time?

Mary-Lou Smulders
Over 2024

Yael Katzwer
Okay.

Mary-Lou Smulders
Sorry, good question. So 1.1 9 million violating flights over 2024 that hit our network. Then when you reflect back on New Jersey, those flights are probably just an indicator of what is happening every day across the entire United States. Now to go back to your original question, which I also think is very important, what was what were people seeing, and what can we do to protect ourselves from potentially dangerous drones? And I think you have to ask that first question of, what were people actually seeing when we think about drone incident, an unauthorized or illegal drone incident, we talk about four steps, detect track identify and potentially mitigate, in other words, stop the threat. So those first three, detect track identify are really around assessing whether or not it’s a drone and if it is a drone, is it a violating or dangerous drone? Detect can be done through basically four different sensors. From a technological perspective, you know, obviously a human could see it, and I’m detecting a drone. But from a technology perspective, you can use RF radio frequency detectors. You can use cameras, you can use radar and you can use acoustics, literally, high tech listening devices each have their pros and cons, like any security system, if you bring. Them all together, they become more powerful. And we talk about sensor fusion, AI driven sensor fusion of all different kinds of detectors to create a more true and reliable view of what is happening in the sky. Track. Track is a fancy word for locate, locate the drone, but also, importantly, locate the pilot, so that you can potentially go to the source to mitigate the threat, and finally, identify and identify sort of has two vectors, when you think about it. One is the first simple one that we’ve talked about, friend or foe. Is this a drone I recognize? Or maybe it’s a police drone, doing drone as first responder, or at a athletic event or a concert? Maybe it’s a broadcasting drone. Or is it one I don’t recognize an unauthorized drone, and the second vector is specifically, what kind of drone is it? When you identify the kind of drone, then you have information about its range, its speed and its payload capability, which could be important later on. Again, those four tools can be used to answer those questions. The federal government recently gave us one more, which is remote ID. Remote ID went into full effect at the beginning of q1 of 2024, and it has been likened to the license plate of the Drone World. So it doesn’t give PII or personally identifying information you and I for driving down the street and we saw drivers, sorry, license plates couldn’t say where the driver lived or what that person’s name or telephone number is, but for the right authorities, it is helpful information. Those can be picked up today for compliant drones through that radio frequency detector that we talked about up front. It’s notable at this point to mention that the compliance to that law that is now nearly one year old is very low, well recognized by the FAA as being surprisingly low.

Yael Katzwer
How can we fix that and get compliance up there where we need it to be?

Mary-Lou Smulders
I think that is a great question, along with the other one that you asked, which is, what could we do about potentially malicious drones? And to a certain extent, part of it is the compliance. Piece is information, but more importantly, enforcement, and in order to have that enforcement, believe it or not, police today lack the authorities to detect those non compliant drones and lack the authority to mitigate potentially dangerous drones. It’s a classic situation of the technology getting ahead of the legislation, causing the legislation, or the laws that exist for us today, frankly, to be antiquated, to use a simple word. And if one good thing comes out of the New Jersey incidents. It’s this awakening to the fact that there are 1000s of violating drones every single day, and our police lack the authority to detect them, and if they are bad, to do something about them.

Yael Katzwer
And when you talk about potentially dangerous, potentially malicious drones, what does that look like? What dangers can drones pose to the general public?

Mary-Lou Smulders
Well, it all depends on the environment you’re in, but a really simple one is, let’s take a weekend ball game with 30 to, you know, up to 100,000 people in attendance, depending on the kind of ball game. A drone flies over the stadium, and it’s carrying a payload today with the laws that exist, the only thing that police can do is through our D drone software, locate where the pilot is, go to the pilot, speak to the pilot, and say, excuse me, pilot, but this is a no fly zone. You’re not allowed to be flying here right now. This happens regularly, but. But to date, the pilot says, Oh, my goodness, I had no idea I wasn’t allowed to be flying here. Of course, I’ll bring it down, in my opinion, probably feigning ignorance of the law, but at the same time not being truly mal intended, right? Right? They were probably, you know, looking for their YouTube channel likes, or maybe, I mean, I can imagine it would just be really cool to look down into a bowl full of humans and get a bird’s eye view of what was going on through your own device. But imagine this today. We have someone and the police goes up to him and says, Excuse me, but you really aren’t allowed to be flying your drone here. And the pilot says, forget you. I’m gonna drop my payload. And they push the button. There is nothing police can do today. They can detect the drone. They can use their cameras and see that the drone is carrying a payload, and all they can do is politely ask the pilot to take it down, to bring it back safely to home. They do not have the authority to touch the in air quotes aircraft, because the laws today protect every aircraft, be it an uncrewed drone or a triple seven full of humans in virtually the same way, again, pointing towards those antiquated laws. And imagine how easy that is, right? A drone on the internet costs around a nice one. You know, you can buy them for less than 100 bucks, but a nice one costs around five to $700 I can anonymously buy it on the internet. I can watch a three minute YouTube video about how to change the turn on, turn off, light switch to a release claw. I can buy that release claw on the internet for less than $20 and I’ve now got myself a homemade bomb dropping device. And when you think about the bomb and this stadium full of humans, I could go to drugs. Drug store buy talcum powder, just good old baby powder. And imagine just the freak out that would cause if you saw a drone flying overhead and dropping a bucket of powder on the we’ve seen that at concerts before, people would surely get injured, if not killed, due to the panic that would ensue. That’s just one example. Another one that we see every day that’s not hypothetical is over prisons. Right? Forget the knife and the cake. It you can’t build a wall high enough a drone is a proverbial 21 foot ladder to the 20 foot wall to drop today and every day, weapons, drugs and cell phones over prison walls at our southern border. Again, not hypothetical. They’re using drones, not only to sneak drugs into the US, but also to eliminate the risk of your guide, to bring people into guide people into the US. You no longer lead a human. They’re following a drone.

Yael Katzwer
Well, we are obviously lobbying, and it’s not just us, it’s with a much wider group of people, everyone from smaller pilots to police associations to prison organizations, etc, to expand those authorities. And that’s not just for police, but also for private security, again, thinking back to those ball games or concerts with large mass gatherings, often it’s private security that support police to protect Americans at those kind of events. The good news is that the tools exist today to solve the problem. We have the capability to do it. And I think again, if one good thing comes out of New Jersey, it’s raising this public awareness that we do need to update our laws to meet the current technological capabilities that exist.

Yael Katzwer
And. Also, if law enforcement can’t legally pursue drone operators, does this open the door then for foreign countries to use drones to cause serious harm to our infrastructure?

Mary-Lou Smulders
Okay, that is a whole different Great question. Right? On the one hand, we’re talking about public safety. And then, on the other hand, we’re talking about national security. And on the national security side, if you think about it, you know, just over 100 years ago, the definition of airspace superiority was defined by having the best airplanes commandeered by the best pilots, and just over 100 years after that definition was established, Ukraine, war broke out, the definition of airspace security, or airspace superiority in war has been completely redefined to be who has the most capable drones, and the best way to pilot or navigate those drones, whether it be human pilots or autonomous navigation, again, we have the tools to combat it. But that one is trickier, because that one is the leading edge of drone technology. You have this sort of cat and mouse game every time one side thinks of a way to attack with the drone, the other one, you know, creates a way to stop that new capability. We have, I will say, we have the privilege of serving on the Ukraine front line alongside Ukrainians, to be part of that technological advance that is literally advancing at the pace of war, with new innovations happening on both sides every day.

Yael Katzwer
And in addition to the uses we’ve talked about for drones, drones are also used for inspections, for cargo transport. So how can we balance counter drone development while supporting the development of drone infrastructure and the use of drones for purposes that help us, such as cargo transport.

Mary-Lou Smulders
I am so glad you asked that question. Drones are tools. They can be incredible tools. Like any tool we’ve been talking about, that part of it in the wrong hands, it can cause great damage. But again, the truth is that drones are a huge potential source of GDP for the United States and the rest of the world, as well as potentially safety measure. You mentioned the inspections several I’ve heard a number 11 humans every year die in helicopter crashes while doing some kind of inspection work. In police work, we are pushing hard on drones as first responders again to get to a scene faster, to assess it to be more efficient in their response, faster at the response, better at the response, and ultimately potentially safer in that response. And to your point, absolutely applies to inspections, including rail and cargo inspections, I think that inspections will not only happen faster and safer, but you will be able to get more done. We fall short every year of our inspection goal, and this is a great opportunity to do it, not just faster, cheaper, safer, but also do more than we could before. Do you know I saw a and I think what drones can do has not been imagined yet. There are still things happening every day. I saw on YouTube. The other day a drone defibrillator. Wow. So what does that look like? And they have this little YouTube you should it’s great. Look it up, drone defibrillator. It’s they made a little commercial, but it’s like, oh my God, my father just had a heart attack. Call 911 and 911 says, Do you have a defibrillator nearby? No, I don’t. We’re sending one to you now, right? And within 60 seconds, there’s a drone at the front door honing in on the signal of the caller’s cell phone. And then it’s sort of like defibrillator for Dummies, like I feel like I could do it, and it’s just one of what must be 1000s. Of new applications for this great tool that we call a drogue.

Yael Katzwer
Yeah, agreed. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me today and answer our questions.

Mary-Lou Smulders
Terrific. Thank you. That was fun. I appreciate the time.

Jeff Lee
That was Dedrone’s chief marketing officer and head of government affairs Mary-Lou Smulders, talking to my colleague, deputy editor Yael Katzwer. And that’s all the time we have today. For more coverage of the freighter aircraft and AAM market, visit cargofacts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time.