Avançar para o conteúdo principal

Canadian firm offers unique drone detection solution



 Vancouver-based SkyCope bills itself as having “the world’s smallest and most powerful AI supercomputer UAV detection system.” And there’s no doubt – what it does is quite impressive.


With the proliferation of drones, a growing number of people have legitimate reasons to want to detect and track devices that might be up to no good. Drones have been used, for example, to smuggle drugs and other contraband into prisons. There are also secure facilities like nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructures where drone detection is critical. Plus, of course, there are airports.


At the CANSEC conference in Ottawa – Canada’s largest security and defense trade show – a Canadian company named SkyCope is gaining interest with its drone detection system. We sat down with Co-CEO Hamid Boostanimehr to learn more about the company and its key product.


Drone Detection

The core of the system is the SkyEye. You can set it up quickly, and it begins analyzing the countless radio signals that are passing through the air: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, commercial radio signals, and more. If there’s a drone in range (and the system has detected from as far as 23 kilometers), AI built into the platform starts looking for a match. A drone library of the unique RF signatures of more than 220 different models of drones is built into SkyEye. And if it finds a match – the person monitoring SkyEye’s output gets a hit.


SkyScope SkyEye drone detection

SkyEye on the left; Hamid Boostanimehr on the right. Photo by Scott Simmie, DroneDJ

“We detect the radio links between the drone and controller. From that, we get information about the drone. We can detect 220+ different drone models in our library,” explained Boostanimehr.


And that’s not all. The company has worked to ensure that its system will still pick up even unfamiliar drones.


“Over time, we realized that our library has limitations: There are older legacy drones, brand new drones… For that, we developed AI machine learning to detect drones that are outside our library. We consider ourselves pioneers in combining AI and radio frequencies and bringing it to the anti-drone industry.”


For example, the SkyCope system can even detect a custom-built machine like this.


Old DJI system SkyScope drone detection

We’re willing to bet a few readers still have something like this in their basement. Photo by Scott Simmie, DroneDJ

Smart technology

The question arises: What makes this system better than some of the others on the market? According toBoostanimehr, it’s all about the AI. The company’s SkyCore computer (which lives inside that SkyEye dome) is really good at sorting through the maze of signals and zeroing in on the ones that matter – while dismissing those that don’t.


“The difference between this kind of AI and the traditional technologies is that such technologies have a lot of false alarms,” he says. “And when the environment is polluted with signals, they cannot separate the drone signals from the background signals. Our AI and detection system, it’s not only detecting drones, it’s detecting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Smart City sensors or transmitters, IoT devices. We are detecting this and classifying them in the background as well, so we can separate the drone signals out.”


Hamid Boostanimehr, SkyScope drone detection

SkyScope Co-CEO Hamid Boostanimehr. Photo by Scott Simmie, DroneDJ

Clients

SkyCope has a lot of clients spread across multiple sectors. But, most broadly, there are clients from the Civil and Defense side of things. Police departments, prisons, military, border protection – Hamid said the list goes on. Interestingly, SkyCope has also sold its system to end-users who already own DJI’s Aeroscope system. That system, which does a great job of detecting DJI products, doesn’t do a great job with drones from outside its own ecosystem. Plus, DJI drones can be spoofed to show an incorrect location. Boostanimehr said SkyCope isn’t fooled by that.


What’s more, the word is out among those who use drones for illicit purposes that DJI products can be detected quite easily with the Aeroscope system. As a result, criminals have been moving away from DJI and using other brands or even home-built drones to try to evade standard drone detection systems.


“We have dozens of our systems deployed next to Aeroscope and also to confirm DJI detections if they are spoofed.”


DroneDJ’s take

There are a growing number of drone detection companies. And, to be honest, we can’t keep track of them all. But we’re impressed with what SkyCope has achieved and by the thinking that’s gone into engineering this solution. Boostanimehr is focused on keeping the SkyEye ahead of the pack with continuous tweaks to its AI and machine learning capabilities.


SkyCope did not reveal the cost of its systems – partly because the price varies depending on how many SkyEyes are deployed and networked. But he did say the system has the lowest cost-to-performance ratio on the market


Canadian firm SkyCope offers unique drone detection solution - DroneDJ


Comentários

Notícias mais vistas:

EUA criticam prisão domiciliária de Bolsonaro e ameaçam responsabilizar envolvidos

 Numa ação imediatamente condenada pelos Estados Unidos, um juiz do Supremo Tribunal do Brasil ordenou a prisão domiciliária de Jair Bolsonaro por violação das "medidas preventivas" impostas antes do seu julgamento por uma alegada tentativa de golpe de Estado. Os EUA afirmam que o juiz está a tentar "silenciar a oposição", uma vez que o ex-presidente é acusado de violar a proibição imposta por receios de que possa fugir antes de se sentar no banco dos réus. Numa nota divulgada nas redes sociais, o Escritório para Assuntos do Hemisfério Ocidental do Departamento de Estado dos Estados Unidos recorda que, apesar do juiz Alexandre de Morais "já ter sido sancionado pelos Estados Unidos por violações de direitos humanos, continua a usar as instituições brasileiras para silenciar a oposição e ameaçar a democracia". Os Estados Unidos consideram que "impor ainda mais restrições à capacidade de Jair Bolsonaro de se defender publicamente não é um serviço público...

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Diogo agostinho  Num país que está sem rumo, sem visão e sem estratégia, é bom recordar quem já teve essa capacidade aliada a outra, que não se consegue adquirir, a liderança. Com uma pandemia às costas, e um país político-mediático entretido a debater linhas vermelhas, o que vemos são medidas sem grande coerência e um rumo nada perceptível. No meio do caos, importa relembrar Aníbal Cavaco Silva. O político mais bem-sucedido eleitoralmente no Portugal democrático. Quatro vezes com mais de 50% dos votos, em tempos de poucas preocupações com a abstenção, deve querer dizer algo, apesar de hoje não ser muito popular elogiar Cavaco Silva. Penso que é, sem dúvida, um dos grandes nomes da nossa Democracia. Nem sempre concordei com tudo. É assim a vida, é quase impossível fazer tudo bem. Penso que tem responsabilidade na ascensão de António Guterres e José Sócrates ao cargo de Primeiro-Ministro, com enormes prejuízos económicos, financeiros e políticos para o país. Mas isso são outras ques...

Supercarregadores portugueses surpreendem mercado com 600 kW e mais tecnologia

 Uma jovem empresa portuguesa surpreendeu o mercado mundial de carregadores rápidos para veículos eléctricos. De uma assentada, oferece potência nunca vista, até 600 kW, e tecnologias inovadoras. O nome i-charging pode não dizer nada a muita gente, mas no mundo dos carregadores rápidos para veículos eléctricos, esta jovem empresa portuguesa é a nova referência do sector. Nasceu somente em 2019, mas isso não a impede de já ter lançado no mercado em Março uma gama completa de sistemas de recarga para veículos eléctricos em corrente alterna (AC), de baixa potência, e de ter apresentado agora uma família de carregadores em corrente contínua (DC) para carga rápida com as potências mais elevadas do mercado. Há cerca de 20 fabricantes na Europa de carregadores rápidos, pelo que a estratégia para nos impormos passou por oferecermos um produto disruptivo e que se diferenciasse dos restantes, não pelo preço, mas pelo conteúdo”, explicou ao Observador Pedro Moreira da Silva, CEO da i-charging...