Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: drones

  • Attack of the killer drones

    Attack of the killer drones

    We’ve heard much about the benefits of fun about drones – remote control aircraft – but what about the security and safety issues of the device. At the Black Hat Security conference today Jeff Melrose of the Yokogawa industrial controls company described the risks posed when bad people use these devices.

    With typical consumer drones having a range of up to five kilometers the idea of an attacker needing to be physically close to their target no longers applies. A drone, as Melrose points out, can  can tailgate workers easier than people and even navigate within offices.

    Fences are no barrier as Melrose showed with a camera equipped drone being able to fly up to valve within a gas field and then read its meter. The drone doesn’t even need to have to make it back, it could be landed on a roof where it quietly record its surroundings for weeks.

    Put more than a camera on a drone, say a wireless packet sniffer or a jamming device and the possibilities for mischief are endless. Melrose illustrated this by starting his presentation with a video of The Killer Drone, a flying chainsaw developed by a pair of Finnish farmers.

    Scarier still, was Melrose demonstration of the ‘target tracking’ technology included on the latest consumer drones by chasing one of his research assistants across a lawn. Despite the assistant’s best efforts to escape, the aircraft was able to follow her.

    Despite the scary aspects of drone spying, vandalism and harassment the devices aren’t invulnerable. The two Finnish farmers had their drone brought down by a balloon and all the risks – from chainsaws to signal jammers – that drones present they themselves are vulnerable to.

    Melrose’s demonstration shows how the physical security world is changing a drones become commonplace. Fences, padlocks and ‘keep out’ signs are not enough to keep today’s generation of technologically savvy trespassers.

    Jeff Melrose’s presentation was a thought provoking view of how the threat landscape is changing and that risks evolve with technology.

    Paul travelled to Las Vegas as a guest of Nuix

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  • Automating the farm with drones

    Automating the farm with drones

    Can unmanned aircraft solve Australia’s feral animal problem? Startup Ninox Robotics believes sending military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the country’s outback can help farmers control pests such as wild dogs and pigs on their sprawling properties.

    “Australian landholders and managers have been struggling against the problem of invasive pest species for decades, including feral dogs, pigs, deer and rabbits,” says the co-founder and CEO of privately owned Ninox, Marcus Elrich.

    Government steps in

    Regulatory requirements on commercial drones such as their only being allowed for line of sight operations during daylight hours and below 400m has limited the deployment of UAVs in large scale agricultural applications, particularly with feral animals that tend to come out at night.

    Ninox’s drones, supplied and operated by Israeli UAV supplier Bluebird, are licensed to operate in the dark and up to 50km from their base. They also have a detachable head that allows operators to switch cameras for different operations, allowing for normal cameras during daytime and infrared at night.

    The trial, being conducted by Ninox Robotics, is the most ambitious civilian drone trial ever conducted in Australian airspace. It utilises state of the art UAVs with advanced real time thermal imaging capabilities to detect invasive pests in rural areas.

    Currently Ninox only has approval from the Australian Civil Aviation and Safety Authority (CASA) to run three-week trials at selected sites in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.

    Services to farmers

    Should the trials be successful and Ninox obtain a wider operating license from CASA, Elrich is looking at offering the service to farmers, government agencies and utility companies for operations ranging from pest control to asset and stock management along with search and rescue roles for emergency services.

    While the use of military drones is substantially more expensive than commercial drones with the costs currently around $3,000 per flight, Elrich believes the service is competitive with manned helicopter operations that many properties in rural Australia require.

    Should the drones be successful on Australia’s sprawling farms, it’s going to be another example of how the current wave of technologies is further automating agriculture. There’s a lot more labour to be saved with these devices.

    At present Elrich and Ninox see pest management as the initial application, but there’s many other ways farmers can be using robot technologies.

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  • Then they came for the sheepdogs – drones take to the farm

    Then they came for the sheepdogs – drones take to the farm

    While we focus on how technology is changing the workplace and displacing jobs, we often overlook how it affects animals as well.

    A video posted by Irish farmer Paul Brennan shows how a drone can be used to herd sheep, putting the humble sheepdog out of work.

    The possibilities in using drones on farms are endless, they free farmers up to do substantially more tasks and if they’re equipped with sensors to communicate with stock, crops or farm infrastructure they can be pulling in more information about the property.

    For the poor sheepdog this isn’t the first time a farm animal has been displaced. Until the arrival of the steam engine and then farm tractor horses had been an essential part of agriculture for thousands of years.

    But while news isn’t good for sheepdogs not all animals are intimidated by drones as one unfortunate owner found out when he decided to harass a mob a kangaroos.

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