'Dronecatcher' Brings Down Fellow UAVs With Massive Nets and Parachutes

Aeroengineering company Delft Dynamics has finally released the so-called 'Dronecatcher', which it has been developing for over two years. 

The drone is equipped with an elaborated tracking system and a launching device that captures other small air vehicles in mid-air. 

The net is also fitted with a parachute for soft landing, in order to prevent the plummeting drone from hurting people or damaging property on the ground.  

Less skilled UAV operators are sometimes reckless or simply unaware of drone usage regulations, and end up flying their devices near high-security areas such as airports, where some think they could cause catastrophic collisions with airliners. However, a recent study by a group of US researchers has claimed that the risk of collisions is in fact extremely low.

Worries about the potential malicious use of drones — for instance for delivering illicit goods or carrying out remote-controlled terrorist attacks — are also escalating, and new solutions are being devised to make drones inoffensive.

The net-based approach has also been embraced by British company Skywall, which last month started selling an anti-drone bazooka spitting web-and-parachute payloads and sporting a sophisticated machine vision software to quickly spot flying UAVs.

More natural ways are also popular, and in the Netherlands, police have been training eagles to attack and take down drones that fly where they should not. Early tests have been encouraging.