Guard From Above Trains Birds to Target Drones

Unmanned aircraft systems are becoming more and more common, and could pose a threat to public safety particularly in the hands of inexperienced and uneducated operators. For example, as you may have read in several of Flying’s news stories, UAS have gotten in the way of airliners near major airports. There have been other cases where unauthorized drones have caused injuries to people in public places.

A company from the Netherlands called Guard From Above has developed a technique they are calling “a low tech solution for a high tech problem” to deal with UAS that are in places they should not be. The company is training birds of prey of various kinds and sizes to take out offending unmanned aircraft.

“By using these birds’ animal instincts, we can offer an effective solution to a new threat,” said GFA founder and CEO Sjoerd Hoogendoorn. The birds see the UAS as prey and take them to a safe area.

The company is working with various national and international government security agencies. The Dutch National Police, for example, is considering whether to use the birds to protect the public against drones flying over large gatherings or in areas where air ambulance operations may be complicated by unauthorized drones.

We wonder if the next inevitable step will be drones that are capable of taking down birds.

Check out the video to see how a bird snags a drone in mid-air.