The Anti-Domestic Drone Company
By
Bob Brewin
Start-up promises 'non-offensive' countermeasures to stop unmanned aircraft from completing their missions.
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, predicted last month that the Federal Aviation Administration’s plans to allow drones in domestic airspace mean that 30,000 of the unmanned aircraft will zip around American skies by 2030.
The drones will be “looking, observing, filming and hovering over America,” Poe said. “We will not know where they are or what they’re looking at or what their purpose is -- whether it’s permitted or not permitted, whether it’s lawful or unlawful. And we really won’t know who is flying those drones.”
A Portland, Ore., start-up, Domestic Drone Countermeasures LLC, views such domestic drone proliferation as a business opportunity, and says it will commercialize military technology to counter these snoops in the sky.
In a Feb. 28 press release the company said it "offers many different large area, small area, mobile and fixed drone countermeasures and systems,” but provided few details.
The company promised its “countermeasures are non-offensive, non-combative and not destructive. Drones will not fall from the sky, but they will be unable to complete their missions.” I want to know more, but the obscure start-up has yet to respond to my email query.
If Domestic Drone Countermeasures succeeds, I figure this will lead to a drone arms race, as unmanned aircraft operators outfit themselves with counter countermeasure systems.