An Israeli firm developed a new radar to detect drones

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)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.