Military To Test Urban Drone Tracking System In San Diego, National City This Week
Speaker 1: 00:00 All this week, DARPA, the defense advanced research projects agency with the support of local government leaders is testing a system designed to detect small drones over cities. Current technology has trouble detecting the drones in cities with tall buildings. And the concern is that the drones could be equipped with weapons that could be used to attack cities. KPBS military reporters. Steve Walsh is covering the story and he joins us now. Welcome Steve. Hi Jade. How big of a concern is this for people in law enforcement? Speaker 2: 00:30 Well, it is a concern. We're not so much worried in San Diego whether or not we're, we'll come under attack. Keep in mind, DARPA is the military research hub. So they're doing this as military research. They want to deploy this with troops overseas. They want to find something that's quick and easy and cheap that they can get out to cities around the country, around the world. So, uh, what the city is concerned about though is unauthorized drones getting into the commercial and civilian airspace. And, um, there are a lot of rules, rules for flying drones and uh, but they are very hard to track. So we talked with Katelyn McCauley, she's with the San Diego regional economic development corporation, which is coordinating with DARPA this week Speaker 3: 01:10 because drones are becoming ever increasingly popular. We really do have to think about them coming into our airspace is a fairly regular occurrence. And that being the case, having proving ground here in San Diego actually offers us an advantage. Speaker 1: 01:24 And can you tell us how the military would use this technology? Speaker 2: 01:27 Well, they would be deployed overseas here in many ways. The military is kind of playing catch up. These, this kind of technology is widely available, not just to us but to um, even in surgeons around the globe. I know Navy seals, they have something called a switchblade, which uh, which was used in Syria. It's essentially a commercial drone which can be flown into a building and detonated. There's a lot of concern that they need something that can be moved, uh, into an area very quickly set up very quickly so they can monitor an area. We're very good at places like deserts and oceans. We're not so good in urban areas. Speaker 1: 02:05 And you mentioned the military is playing catch up with this project. Tell us a bit more about that. Speaker 2: 02:10 Well, yeah, this technology is cheap and it's readily available to just about everybody and I was at an expo at camp Pendleton just a couple of years ago where the Marines were admitting that they're playing ketchup for years. The bulk of their research budget was going into keeping troops safe in the desert here and they had gotten behind on things like advanced drones and they were deciding at that point how much of this technology do we want to actually develop ourselves and how much can we just go ahead and buy it and then adapted to what we already need. So a lot of these plans, these sorts of ideas involving drones, how to use them and how to track them. This is becoming more and more the focus of the military Speaker 1: 02:49 now among all the cities where this could actually be done. Why was San Diego chosen? Speaker 2: 02:53 Well because we have a large military base here that makes it easier for DARPA to run its tests. And the San Diego is also, still is already working with the FAA with its integration pilot program, which is basically a program, uh, that is testing drones for applications like unmanned traffic management and flying at night and flying over people and flying beyond the visual line of sight. All the things that are right now banned in or restricted when it comes to commercial drones. Speaker 1: 03:21 As I understand it, this testing involves a couple of tethered balloons equipped with the new technology. Can you tell us how it works? Speaker 2: 03:28 Well, keep in mind that a lot of this is classified because this is advanced research by the department of defense. But what we know is those drones carry a radar and that the balloon also carries a certain amount of sensors and radar itself. The idea that you want to create a picture where you can track these drones when they go around the building or underneath something so you can see like a full complete picture of all this like civilian radar where the plane, they compared it to the flight tracker for four planes. Speaker 1: 03:57 Yeah, because like this T this detection technology was not originally developed for domestic urban settings. Right, Speaker 2: 04:04 right. Well this, this is what they're trying to do. This is what DARPA is trying to do with aerial Dragnet. They're trying to come up with a system that is going to work in those areas and you know, ultimately the idea is that maybe this can be rolled out commercially, but right now this is an experiment being conducted by the military. Speaker 1: 04:21 Okay. And I know the testing last through Friday, did anyone involved give you an any indication of how well it's performing so far? Speaker 2: 04:28 So we were in Logan Heights for the original test flights there and everything was up and running there. W what they're trying to do essentially is that the aerial Dragnet will try to find commercial drones. They'll have about a dozen of them flying around and they'll see how many of them they can actually attract with this equipment. Speaker 1: 04:46 So when might we expect to see systems like these deployed in San Diego and other large cities? Speaker 2: 04:51 Well, that is the question. And DARPA really doesn't know. When I asked that question, some of the folks, the technicians that were working there, they, they mentioned the internet, that a DARPA was involved with the creation of the original internet. That was in the 1960s and people didn't start having an email address until somewhere in the 1990s so this, they could have a very long window for this. And the thing is that they not only need a system that works, but it has to be cheap. Something that they can deploy quickly, that those are going to be the keys to whether or not this works. So it could be a very long time before we see this in and around a place like San Diego. Speaker 1: 05:26 All right. I've been speaking with KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh. Steve. Thank you. Speaker 2: 05:30 Thanks Jane. Speaker 4: 05:34 [inaudible].
