April 2021: The prevalence of unmanned aerial vehicles has caused a plethora of safety and regulatory problems in recent years, which is why several companies are developing counter-UAV technologies. Some of these use kinetic methods to disable offending drones, but others use microwave radiation to either jam or disable the drones’ onboard electronics.
“A ray gun that can fry a drone’s electronics at hundreds of meters sounds like something Tony Stark would invent” says Dr. Humphreys.
Amazing as it sounds, such devices are being developed today. But companies seeking to test their devices are being denied by the FCC and referred to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which has jurisdiction over military spectrum experiments. Read the IEEE Spectrum article here.