Pierluigi Paganini August 14, 2015

The Israeli company ARTSYS 360 is developing a small 3D electronic radar that will be able to monitor drones in small areas.

Recently I wrote a post on an Aerial Assault Drone recently presented at the Black Hat conference, the vehicle was equipped with hacking tools to compromise wi-fi target networks. The use of drones is increasing and the possible misuses too, the unmanned aerial vehicles could be used by groups of terrorists for reconnaissance before an attack or to hit a critical infrastructure. The security problems are even more serious is we consider the use of drones and quadcopters in the urban areas, for this reason, it is necessary the monitoring of these vehicles to prevent dangerous situations.

The Israeli company ARTSYS 360 is developing a small 3D electronic radar that will be able to monitor every unmanned vehicle in small areas. This new radar is lightweight, has low power consumption and is able to monitor aerial traffic in an area with a range of 400 meters.

ARTSYS 360 states its radar ensures blind zones coverage: 3D-360° and assures detection and tracking also in a high-density environment such as an urban area.

“The system performs a 3D 90 degrees vertical scanning and an horizontal 360 degrees scanning. The company claims that the system provides 1.5 degrees horizontal and vertical accuracy.The new radar, according to the company, performs a 360 degrees scanning every second.” states the iHLS portal.

The radar is ideal for homeland security, it could be used to enforce physical security of an area with a limited perimeter, for instance, monitoring the presence of drones along fences or borders.

The company website advertises its Grid Micro-Radar systems with following statements:

• Monitor the Aerial Environment for detection and tracking of UAVs
• Query on Board Transponders for identification of the UAVs
• Grid Operation network of Micro-Radars in urban area
• Handover of UAVs between Radars in the grid for continuous tracking
• FAA and other law enforcement access the cloud grid for:
• Tracking
• Communicating
• Friends-or-Foe Identification
• Jamming

The small radar is able to communicate with the control center via WiFi, Lan, Rj45 and 3G, the power supply relies on an electric grid and has as an optional 4 lithium batteries to last through 48-96 hours of operations as well as a solar panel.

Another point of strength that makes this radar ideal for urban areas are low radiation emissions during operations.

The radar could be used also to interfere with drones, in case it detects unauthorized UAVs and quadcopters it is able to jam them causing malfunction.

The authors explained that such radar is particularly useful in combating drug smuggling and to prevent drones incidents.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Drones, Radars)