As concerns about homeland drone attacks persist, the Pentagon is looking for ways to combat everything from nuisance hobbyists to adversarial drone activity—including options that don’t include shooting them down. To that end, the Army is funding a new research center at Virginia Tech to test the limits and develop training for non-kinetic counterdrone technologies. “Kinetic is the old way. It’s the right way for many applications and systems when you need to guarantee immediate death. It’s part of a layered defense system, but non-kinetic offers a ton of benefits,” said Austin Phoenix, the director of Virginia Tech’s National Security Institute’s Mission Systems Division. “The ability to hack or take over or basically trick a [unmanned aerial system] into landing safely is always going to be the preferred operation for both DOD and local law enforcement to ensure that no one is going no one is going to be put at undue risk from that event.”
Killing drones softly (Lauren C. Williams – Defense One)
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