DARPA plans city wide network of tethered platforms and long-endurance UASs to track every terrorist drone

Cities have become the new battleground and Hybrid or Urban Warfare the greatest threat being waged by ISIS to Boko Haram to Hamas to  Ukraine rebels.  One of the biggest emerging threat in cities is growth and proliferation of UAVs or drones. In a written statement, Baroness Anelay of St Johns said: ‘The Government has a range of material, including images, that provides evidence that Daesh (ISIS) has used small, commercially available unmanned aerial vehicles in Syria and Iraq to extend their surveillance capability, produce propaganda material and carry small improvised explosive devices.’In DARPATech 2004, DARPA elevated urban warfare to the level of a strategic thrust.

“The Security Impact of Drones: Challenges and Opportunities for the UK” suggests, that commercial drones could be used by gangs to monitor the movement of police, security guards, or anti-smuggling patrols so as to better plot their criminal mischief. Burglars, train robbers, and poachers could use them as lookouts. Larger models might be used to carry smuggled goods; something we’ve already seen in Mexican cartels reportedly flying drugs across the border. Alternatively, they could be weaponized.

And as off-the-shelf UAS become less expensive, easier to fly, and more adaptable for terrorist or military purposes, U.S. forces will increasingly be challenged by the need to quickly detect and identify such craft—especially in urban areas, where sight lines are limited and many objects may be moving at similar speeds, says DARPA. DARPA has launched Aerial Dragnet seeks to perform persistent wide-area surveillance of multiple small unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in urban terrain on a city-wide scale.

AT&T is currently working with NASA to develop an Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management program that will enable agencies across the country to monitor drone activity, as reported by Ryan Banister. According to a statement released by AT&T, this program is supposed to assist drone operators in monitoring flight paths and navigating drones as well as using them for surveillance. The company says that its main goal is to protect against cyber attacks on drones.