Counter-uncrewed aircraft systems (CUAS) specialist DroneShield is seeing growing interest in its technology from both defense and commercial helicopter primes, holding talks with companies over mounting its DroneSentry-X Mk2 detection and defeat device on the underside of platforms.
DroneShield produces a wide range of hardware and software in CUAS, including portable detection devices like RfPatrol Mk2; drone defeat products such as the DroneGun Mk4; and “on-the-move” and fixed-site devices, including the DroneSentry-X Mk2, which both detects and disrupts drones.
CEO Oleg Vornik said the huge rise of drones in the airspace in recent years make them a growing concern for both military and commercial operators. “They could get caught in the blade of the helicopter or crack through the windshield,” he told Vertical, adding that this could be a particular issue in wildfire scenarios. “If you have wildfire often you can’t actually get firefighting helicopters to the scene, because people are flying drones to take videos and photos of the fires,” he said.
There is a growing appetite to mount devices such as DroneSentry-X directly onto helicopters, he said, providing detection, tracking and disruption capabilities in a single unit. Its jamming capabilities can disrupt the drone’s ability to communicate and navigate, forcing it to land or even return to its original launching site.
DroneShield has had approaches from companies on the defense side already, Vornik said, and expects to complete airworthiness work in the next two years to permanently mount the DroneSentry-X Mk2 system to helicopters.
Other DroneShield products are already in use on helicopters, notably the RfPatrol handheld detection device, which can be simply carried in the cabin. This has already been used by U.S.-based firefighters and other customers, he said.
“The great thing about the portables is they don’t mount,” Vornik added. “Obviously, anything that hard mounts to an airframe needs to be airworthy — it is a significant process to make something airworthy and compliant so that it can be physically, permanently attached to the helicopter.”
Airports and heliports are also a key focus for protection of helicopters from drones, Vornik added, with the company also seeing growing interest from operators of such fixed-site locations. Sometimes it is not possible to jam UAS in the vicinity of such a facility, he noted, but often this is not the best course of action anyway: it can be more useful to learn the location of the pilot.
“If you jam a drone, the pilot will turn up tomorrow with another drone,” he noted. “If you actually apprehend the pilots, you arrest the pilot, that’s both a stronger deterrent and actually solves the issue.”
As eVTOLs, drones and other new technologies drive a growing focus on UAS traffic management (UTM), Vornik said the same capabilities used to detect and track drones could also be used to ease movement in the airspace, working with cooperative platforms.
“I think between our hardware and software we’re pretty well positioned,” he added. “It’s nice to have software that stitches the UTM system together, but at the end of the day, you still need hardware sensors to track what’s happening in the corridor.”
