Drone related technology

Drone related technology is an umbrella term used to describe all technology related to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), for us also unmanned water- and land vehicles fall under this umbrella. Drones and drone-related technologies originally emerged from the military sector. Besides military use, drone technology also made its advance for commercial and personal use. Accordingly, drones have become central to the functions of various governmental organizations and businesses over the past few years. For example, drones can be used for gathering information, supplying essentials for disaster management, geographic mapping of inaccessible and/or dangerous terrain and locations, surveillance, search and rescue operation (thermal sensor drones), shipping & delivery and aerial photography for real estate. The function of the drone is determined by the payload, e.g. a video camera, other sensor, package (transport function) or other.

Next to a positive function, drones could pose several threats. They could breach privacy standards by detecting and tracking people against their will. There are also examples where drones hinder regular (air)traffic. Rules about flying standards are under development but not yet adequate, therefore everyone is able to buy and fly a drone which can create dangerous situations. There are several examples where drones were succesfully hacked. A controversy is that military drones are dual-use technologies, which means they can have both a civil and a military application. And can, thus, be used to carry out an attack for instance with payloads such as explosives, chemical, radiologial or biological hazards. This is one of the reasons Counter-Drone technologies (C-UAS) are developed to detect and stop drones. C-UAS includes all technology varying from drone monitoring equipment, radio frequency (RF) analysers, acoustic sensors, optical sensors, radar and countermeasures equipment as GPS spoofers, lasers, deployable nets, hacking and many more.

Related keywords: Counter-Drone Technologies, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Unmanned Aerial Systems, Dual-use.