Developers plan interceptor drone to hunt and crash other drones

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/15/drone-hunt-crash-rapere

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The skies may be increasingly busy with consumer drones in the coming years, but if one group of developers has its way, some of them will be plummeting to earth unexpectedly.

Meet Rapere: an “intercept drone” designed to hunt down nearby drones, hover overhead and drop a tangle-line into their rotors, forcing them to crash.

Its makers, a group of drone-industry veterans, have only released simple diagrams of how the device will work – above – and claim they are in talks about mass-production while continuing to develop Rapere.

“We’ve collectively never come across any bogus use of drones. However it’s inevitable that will happen, and for people such as celebrities, where there is profit to be made in illegally invading their privacy, there should be an option to thwart it,” explains their website.

It adds that once it takes off, the Rapere will scan the sky for nearby drones before pinpointing one – “it can tell the difference between a bird and a drone” – disabling it and then returning to base to have a new tangle-line fitted.

“It won’t be cheap like a DJI type drone. It will be priced as a professional tool – we don’t want this to become a toy people can use to disrupt legitimate drone use,” explain the developers, who promise they will try to avoid such abuse.

“We have a number of ideas, such as requiring disclosure of ownership with the local police department before we will ship the drone,” explains the site.

“Buyers will need to be qualified. We’re not sure exactly yet, but we will require some sort of proof of legitimate use, such as public safety officials, event organisers, private security firms, etc.”

Rapere should probably be giving Kanye West’s security team a call: the musician spoke out in 2014 about his concerns over paparazzi-owned drones while testifying in a lawsuit filed against him by a photographer.

“Wouldn’t you like to just teach your daughter how to swim without a drone flying? What happens if a drone falls right next to her? Would it electrocute her?” said West, according to TMZ.

“Could it fall and hit her if that paparazzi doesn’t understand how to remote control the drone over their house?”

Rapere claims its device is legal, although whether use of it is legal “depends on how you plan to use it, and where you live”.

There are likely to be a number of risks for users of the device, including lawsuits from owners of disabled drones if they are damaged as they fall to the ground, not to mention any people or property that they crash into.

A lively discussion in the comments section of its site is already debating the legality of Rapere, as well as the claim that it is fast enough to catch rival drones, as its makers promise. With no video footage yet available, those claims are hard to prove.

“There are a few things that are obvious in the video about how to pull this off, that we don’t want to give away,” explained Rapere in response to one question.

“However, when we’ve figured out how to manufacture these things, and who to sell them to, under what conditions, then we’ll go public with video. Getting too much exposure now would be a waste as we haven’t got a product.”

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