Rapere: A drone that hunts other drones

“The Guardian Bird” of Sheckley is becoming less and less fantastic work (except, of course, the fact that in the “Guardian Bird” UAVs can literally analyze the situation on the fly and prevent crimes before the criminal plan is realized). Whatever it was, and the number of "birds", that is, drones, is now growing exponentially.

Quadcopters are used by scientists, journalists, gadget lovers. In some cases, drones are used to illegally monitor people or even objects such as nuclear power plants. And such cases are increasing. In order to avoid the misuse of drones, the technology startup Rapere suggests using ... drones.

Rapere is a quadcopter whose main purpose is to detect, get close and knock down a target. In a startup, there are several specialists who have been engaged in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles for several years. This team created Rapere, which hunts for "bad drones", however, only in laboratory conditions.
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In field conditions, Rapere has not yet been tested, but the principle of the device is quite understandable. The aircraft is equipped with 12 low-resolution cameras with 90 fps, which are used to detect other UAVs (in this case we are talking about quadcopters). When a target is detected, Rapere flies up to another UAV, while being above the victim. When the speeds of the devices are synchronized, Rapere drops a piece of rope that is wound on the victim's propellers, and the other quadcopter falls.



According to the developers, Rapere is quite capable of distinguishing a quadrocopter from other flying objects (for example, birds). The operating time of Rapere is not very long (only 2 minutes), since the navigation computer, the detection and “guidance” system requires a lot of energy.

Of course, such a project has known problems, one of which is legality and legitimacy of use. If Rapere itself is a legal device, then its use is illegal, this is damage to another's property. The second problem is the price. Rapere will cost much more than a regular amateur drone, so the range of customers is also limited.

However, if the project develops, soon we will be able to see the war of drones, literally.