Originally Posted by
TCAS FAN
While a detect and avoid system may never be available for SUA it is beginning to appear on larger UAS, as with the Elbit 900 Hermes, albeit the one demonstrated in Wales had only ADS-B and a SSR transponder. Elbit do advertise a detect and avoid system on their website, if they can get it certified, as mentioned in a previous post, the flood gates will open for commercial/law enforcement and other operation of UAS in UK.
If the basis of the detect and avoid tech is going to include ADS-B, isn’t that just going to give the more dedicated criminals an advantage? For a start it’s surpassingly easy to hop onto Flight Radar 24 (or whatever) and see where it is. But it would also be very easy for a more professional criminal to have an ADS-B receiver, to get an instant warning of the presence of a police UAV free of any internet delays (and no internet trace either). Such a thing is well within the scope of the technical ability of organised crime gangs.
If that became a regular problem they might try using a random ADS-B id. But that mustn’t match another aircraft’s number and it would be trivial to spot new ADS-B ids in comparison with the entries in public databases.
Basically it’d be a tech arms race between cops and robbers, but the advantage would always be with the robbers. The UAV cameras wouldn’t ever find a single professional criminal because they’d be able to know it was coming into their area long before it could see them.
I don’t know if police helicopters emit ADS-B, but they’d probably have the option of switching it off if this ever became an issue.
What I fear may happen is that the lure of cost savings will override any concerns like this, and in years to come we’ll start seeing parliamentary reports about the ineffectiveness of police airborne operations against organised crime, drugs smuggling, etc.