This is a copy-paste from what I posted on reddit in regards to the same kind of thing.
Really this entire concept is stupid. Not only are higher-end quadcopters unimaginably acrobatic, to the point where a skilled pilot could easily outfly a bird, but these things are literally flying lawnmowers.
Go on /r/Multicopter or any other multirotor forum, there are loads of people that have been sliced all over their arms, and if you dig further, cuts down to the bone in some cases. Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones, well. (maybe eagle/falcon legs are different tho?) Seriously, if I was a falconer I would never consent to this.
As for people suggesting they use cords or something to tangle the props up, that's really not an impossible problem either, people have been putting mesh cages over their props to fly them safely indoors for some time now, plus if you only stop one prop the quad becomes extremely violent in it's movements, pitching and rolling all over the damn place, which again, will probably at the very least hurt the bird quite a lot.
Plus, if you were using quads for nefarious purposes, if that bird catches your quad you're not gonna give up and call it a day, more likely you'll push the throttle to max, which again, will cause that bird quite a lot of harm.
If I were the aforementioned falconer, I would make sure the pilot cut the motors immediately before the eagle caught it, as that's the only way this would ever be safe for anyone involved.
Predatory birds attack by dive-bombing. You won't see it coming even if you have an extra camera on the drome pointed upward. They also know how to dive out of the sun which means that they are invisible in the camera view. And their bones are irrelevant because the damage is done by their mass plus acceleration. Likely they are going to be flying with some kind of netting material that will tangle the blades as well.
And birds, even trained ones, might be considered expendable.
Not to mention that using birds does not mean that they will attack the drones. They might just find the drone and point out its position for a ground based missile or laser.
And people fighting against terrorist whose goal is to kill and maim people might be willing to sacrifice a few trained birds to stop the terrorist acts from succeeding.
I think a more fundamental problem is cost: Building one more explosive-drone is probably cheaper than raising and training one more bird, so an attacker would just send N+1 drones against N birds, and whichever drones detect interference can explode into shrapnel.
> Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones
Maybe they could make them little reinforced booties of kevlar and steel-sheathed talons? :P
Over in the realm of sci-fi, its interesting to contemplate bird-safe EMP grenades, or a neural-tap that makes the birds part of a spotter/targeting system for ground-based lasers.
I wonder, at which point do we get to MAVs that are so small and agile that a room full of 300 humans could not grab even one of 300 mavs even if they tried really hard.
In other words every time the MAV sees something coming at it, it redirects is flight in microseconds to avoid it, like a fly. Imagine such swarms infiltrating any size crowd without ever getting caught.
You could incapacitate a whole crowd via MAVs landing and causing electroshocks. Or administering a pathogen.
Apparently it works without serious injuries. I had the same initial reaction. The bird is apparently supposed to carry the whole drone (or at least try to), which also puts a limit on the size of drones.
Bird's feet have a very tough hide. And these eagles seem to have leather cuffs.
Also wild eagles have been known to go after drones with no problems...
Are you questioning whether the military would hesitate to put the life and limb of birds at risk? I'm sure the training is as safe as it can be (just like for humans) but all bets are off in an actual hostile situation.
These birds take down full sized wolves. I think they will have a chance at immortalizing a drown. And it's a bird if it loses it's life and saved one human then so be it. Please don't post stuff from reddit it's full of idiots.
Animals are, by law, treated as property, not sentient beings, so one dead bird is nothing in the realm of anthropocentric humanity. If it fulfills the purpose man has given it's enough of a justification not to take animal's wishes as morally relevant.
>four eggs "were placed before birth on top of drones while still inside the eggshell and, after hatching, kept them there during their early feeding period
Why did they put the eggs on drones? Wouldn't that make the eagles think they are parents or related.
Why not use autonomous drone swarms to attack enemy drones (any that does not respond with correct security certificate, for example) rather than a very costly solution, which while interesting and clever and lo tech, isn't viable in warfare scenarios.
Likely because falconers want funding just as much as drone builders.
But there might be more: having a heavy hunter-seeker drone over a crowd would be nearly as bad as having the occasional rogue drone there. Birds, with their amazingly low mechanical failure rate might be the preferable way of keeping reasonable people reasonable. Sensitive parts of the sky need to be kept clear of non-malicious, but nonetheless rogue drones not only because of accident risk, but also to get a clear threat indication from the malicious ones. "Probably just some kid who ran out of things to film with their gopro" is not very helpful when assessing the relative risks of a violent takedown over a crowd.
Consider for moment why the French are training eagles to take down drones: bombs. Now think about how the eagles are dealing with the drones... They knock them out of the sky. I can't be the only one seeing a problem with this.
"Use the 'interference gun'". If that works, and it's a BIG "if", the drone will either land or fall to the ground. Bombs away! Seriously, it's just as bad as an eagle crashing into it. Real gun? Same problem with the added bonus of a bullet going through the drone and continuing on its journey to who-knows-where.
So what's a government to do? The only solution I can see that removes the threat of a bomb going off is this: a much larger drone (650mm and above octocopter) armed with a net gun. The key here is to have the net tethered to the drone so it can carry the hostile drone away to a safe area. The drone-mounted net gun already exists (Excipio), just have to get the net tethered to the drone.
This approach is not all that new, but it's a clicky headline so it keeps coming back as news organizations cover it again and again. I remember seeing this over a year ago, and before that was well (in 2015 as I recall). A quick search shows a lot of coverage last year of Dutch police doing the same thing: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/eagle-vs-drone
> A solution presented itself in an experiment by Dutch police, who last year used a trained eagle to pluck a DJI Phantom drone out of the air, Peter Holley reported for The Washington Post.
This is incredibly stupid. As I've posted elsewhere here, drones have a chance to outfly and outmaneuver the golden eagles used in the program. Then, assuming the eagles catch up, they still have to deal with blades - with wingtips spinning at hundreds of miles per hour. There's no way they can survive the blades: every bird I've seen that encounters a UAV either was instantly killed or permanently disabled.
I've worked with drones enough to know what will and won't stop them. A bird won't: it'll brush the blades and fall to the ground in a bloody mess. A bullet will. Bullets are tried and true technology, we know how to use them, they're not ridiculously expensive, and they will certainly take down any drone of reasonable size.
This is PR, plain and simple. There's no other explanation for it, unless France's air force is hilariously incompetent, which I would doubt.
Maybe it won't work for all drones, but bullets would drop drones into the crowds below, so the idea catching them in the air is not that stupid. It's just one of the ideas the police is exploring.
I think the reason that the French are investing in this solution is because other cheaper (or more effective) interceptor drone technology is still not ready to be used.
To think that the French army is not also investing on hunter drones is to severely underestimate the intelligence of that army.
Got to wonder the damage that will happen to the bird. The larger drones which these tests are for would do some serious damage to the birds legs if the pilot kept the motors turning. If the pilot is intent on breaking away, they would not care about the birds well being.
Some of these drones also put out a fair amount of thrust so even if the drone is upside-down it could quite easily pull down the bird.
Somehow I feel that this training of large birds to catch drones just has not been thought through. Would a net cannon not but more successful especially when using high tensile netting. For mobility, attach net cannon to police multi rotor.
A multirotor carrying a heavy payload is not going to have a lot of thrust to spare to apply to the bird. The rotors only typically run in one direction as well, so it couldn't suddenly apply counter thrust.
Most multirotor autopilots also would behave in a very expected fashion when disturbed, making them pretty predictable.
This sounds much better than eagles. One issue with eagles is that they have to be taken care of, fed, and deployed when needed.
This is like the old mechanization vs cavalry debate. Machines have many more benefits than just how they function at a specific task (ie, they dont get tired).
Not going to work well, save for small drones capable of ridiculous payloads; a big one with more powerful engines and stronger props would seriously damage or kill the bird. To me the best way to neutralize a drone is by shooting it with a thin but strong steel net from another smaller and faster one: instant stop + faraday cage effect that probably also severs its connection with the launch base instantly.
The more I think about it, the more I think this is a bluf to push drone designers to overengineer their devices.
Eagles are not scalable, but it is way simpler to train a handful of them as a proof of concept than to eagle-proof existing designs of drones. And given physical and engineering limits, every countermeasure implemented in a drone will cut into the effective payload that is available for the drone to carry on its actual function.
The eagles were never meant to defeat the drones, but to force their designers to handicap those.
Alright, so they're getting leather gloves and are named after musketeers. How about equipping them with rapiers? Disable the drone blades with blades!
[+] [-] Vexs|9 years ago|reply
Really this entire concept is stupid. Not only are higher-end quadcopters unimaginably acrobatic, to the point where a skilled pilot could easily outfly a bird, but these things are literally flying lawnmowers. Go on /r/Multicopter or any other multirotor forum, there are loads of people that have been sliced all over their arms, and if you dig further, cuts down to the bone in some cases. Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones, well. (maybe eagle/falcon legs are different tho?) Seriously, if I was a falconer I would never consent to this. As for people suggesting they use cords or something to tangle the props up, that's really not an impossible problem either, people have been putting mesh cages over their props to fly them safely indoors for some time now, plus if you only stop one prop the quad becomes extremely violent in it's movements, pitching and rolling all over the damn place, which again, will probably at the very least hurt the bird quite a lot. Plus, if you were using quads for nefarious purposes, if that bird catches your quad you're not gonna give up and call it a day, more likely you'll push the throttle to max, which again, will cause that bird quite a lot of harm. If I were the aforementioned falconer, I would make sure the pilot cut the motors immediately before the eagle caught it, as that's the only way this would ever be safe for anyone involved.
[+] [-] memracom|9 years ago|reply
And birds, even trained ones, might be considered expendable.
Not to mention that using birds does not mean that they will attack the drones. They might just find the drone and point out its position for a ground based missile or laser.
And people fighting against terrorist whose goal is to kill and maim people might be willing to sacrifice a few trained birds to stop the terrorist acts from succeeding.
[+] [-] Terr_|9 years ago|reply
> Given the brittle, hollow nature of bird bones
Maybe they could make them little reinforced booties of kevlar and steel-sheathed talons? :P
Over in the realm of sci-fi, its interesting to contemplate bird-safe EMP grenades, or a neural-tap that makes the birds part of a spotter/targeting system for ground-based lasers.
[+] [-] EGreg|9 years ago|reply
In other words every time the MAV sees something coming at it, it redirects is flight in microseconds to avoid it, like a fly. Imagine such swarms infiltrating any size crowd without ever getting caught.
You could incapacitate a whole crowd via MAVs landing and causing electroshocks. Or administering a pathogen.
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/10/insects-frui...
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|9 years ago|reply
Bird's feet have a very tough hide. And these eagles seem to have leather cuffs.
Also wild eagles have been known to go after drones with no problems...
[+] [-] sangnoir|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumberingjack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eaglawaway|9 years ago|reply
how much is an eagle and a trainer? that times 10 is easily within the pr budget of your average large military
i not saying a poor animal being is being hurt in the blades of the drone for a military pr stunt
rather, it's shown as victorious
[+] [-] botexpert|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rodionos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wapz|9 years ago|reply
Why did they put the eggs on drones? Wouldn't that make the eagles think they are parents or related.
[+] [-] mc32|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usrusr|9 years ago|reply
But there might be more: having a heavy hunter-seeker drone over a crowd would be nearly as bad as having the occasional rogue drone there. Birds, with their amazingly low mechanical failure rate might be the preferable way of keeping reasonable people reasonable. Sensitive parts of the sky need to be kept clear of non-malicious, but nonetheless rogue drones not only because of accident risk, but also to get a clear threat indication from the malicious ones. "Probably just some kid who ran out of things to film with their gopro" is not very helpful when assessing the relative risks of a violent takedown over a crowd.
[+] [-] alex_duf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ill0gicity|9 years ago|reply
"Use the 'interference gun'". If that works, and it's a BIG "if", the drone will either land or fall to the ground. Bombs away! Seriously, it's just as bad as an eagle crashing into it. Real gun? Same problem with the added bonus of a bullet going through the drone and continuing on its journey to who-knows-where.
So what's a government to do? The only solution I can see that removes the threat of a bomb going off is this: a much larger drone (650mm and above octocopter) armed with a net gun. The key here is to have the net tethered to the drone so it can carry the hostile drone away to a safe area. The drone-mounted net gun already exists (Excipio), just have to get the net tethered to the drone.
[+] [-] seandhi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danboarder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Signez|9 years ago|reply
> A solution presented itself in an experiment by Dutch police, who last year used a trained eagle to pluck a DJI Phantom drone out of the air, Peter Holley reported for The Washington Post.
[+] [-] redtuesday|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arikrak|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgCNVdYzIcw
[+] [-] owenversteeg|9 years ago|reply
This is PR, plain and simple. There's no other explanation for it, unless France's air force is hilariously incompetent, which I would doubt.
[+] [-] spiderfarmer|9 years ago|reply
Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s
Maybe it won't work for all drones, but bullets would drop drones into the crowds below, so the idea catching them in the air is not that stupid. It's just one of the ideas the police is exploring.
[+] [-] lumberingjack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msl09|9 years ago|reply
To think that the French army is not also investing on hunter drones is to severely underestimate the intelligence of that army.
[+] [-] lend000|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] popol12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bnegreve|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sir-alien|9 years ago|reply
Some of these drones also put out a fair amount of thrust so even if the drone is upside-down it could quite easily pull down the bird.
Somehow I feel that this training of large birds to catch drones just has not been thought through. Would a net cannon not but more successful especially when using high tensile netting. For mobility, attach net cannon to police multi rotor.
[+] [-] falcolas|9 years ago|reply
Most multirotor autopilots also would behave in a very expected fashion when disturbed, making them pretty predictable.
[+] [-] dmix|9 years ago|reply
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Iron_Beam
This sounds much better than eagles. One issue with eagles is that they have to be taken care of, fed, and deployed when needed.
This is like the old mechanization vs cavalry debate. Machines have many more benefits than just how they function at a specific task (ie, they dont get tired).
[+] [-] squarefoot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] upofadown|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gonzo41|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superzadeh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sslnx|9 years ago|reply
The only viable solution against harmful drones are drones themselves.
[+] [-] crpatino|9 years ago|reply
Eagles are not scalable, but it is way simpler to train a handful of them as a proof of concept than to eagle-proof existing designs of drones. And given physical and engineering limits, every countermeasure implemented in a drone will cut into the effective payload that is available for the drone to carry on its actual function.
The eagles were never meant to defeat the drones, but to force their designers to handicap those.
[+] [-] ndh2|9 years ago|reply