What do I need to know about C-UAS?

Описание: Understand why in the rush to react to drones we are failing to place this threat within context, map the vulnerabilities of aviation-critical infrastructure to it, and engage in the education necessary to understand drone technologies. All of these steps must come before we close airports, arrest individuals, and deploy countermeasures. More worryingly, by engaging in today’s “fire, ready, aim” industry-protection paradigm, we are blinding ourselves from the real threat: autonomy. Simply put, what we face today is but a short sideshow of primitive technology that heralds the more daunting, long-term threat.

Make no mistake, a new generation of drones relying on autonomy is taking to the skies now. These vehicles use machine-perception systems and machine learning to sense their environment and guide themselves. They understand their environment and intelligently navigate in order to optimize mission accomplishment. This is the main event. The sideshow is the soon-to-be-obsolete systems that we see today that rely on external command guidance, whether GPS or an operator wearing goggles.

Why does autonomy really matter? In the age of vehicles that sense their world, then understand and react to what they are perceiving, autonomy allows for unprecedented precision in mission accomplishment. Autonomy allows for flight through a forest canopy to a destination that may be on the other side of an open window. Autonomy allows for millimeter precision in delivery of munitions all the while avoiding, anticipating, and reacting to dynamic changes in the vehicle’s environment. In short, it takes us as close as we can get to 100% assurance a given mission will succeed.