5 responses

1. I am dubious. Spread spectrum technology fairly common on drones is very difficult for the military to Jam. The transmitter and receiver change frequency together in a pseudorandom order, but drones are sold with GPS they can fly a course with waypoints and waiting times on autopilot with no human control. Presumably why the author claims it will fly back to where it was launched from. If it was on manual control it would crash anywhere and there have been lethal accidents involving drones.

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2. Hi Rhys
   Thanks for your comment, be interested to see what happens when it’s implemented in June.

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3. What would be the level of cost a prison is willing to go to to stop this drug-entry point? Is £100000 equal to 4 salaried dogs clearing the yard each morning ? For a 139-prisoner jail would they make a difference to drug detection and retrieval?

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4. The blocking signal from this system need’s to cover very high in the sky.

   Some of these drones can fly quite high, then they could simply drop their contraband from height.

   If all else fails they could proberbly use modified hobby gliders with no programmed pcb’s onboard.

   Where theres a will theres probably Many ways.

   The way to stop it for good is a slanted mesh roof where contraband dropped will then fall/roll to a capture bin of sort..
   Job Done.

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5. Hello, This is a very interesting subject, and one that I feel I need to respond to and present some of my concerns and ideas. I’ve been researching counter drone technologies for the past few years and presently have a relatively simple solution – I’ll reserve more detail about it for later – if anyone is interested – as I don’t want my comments here to appear as a marketing effort. Here is one of my resent papers describing most of the potential pitfalls associated with counter drone defense. If and comments or questions please sent to my email: GBlyth@WaterSlug.com (I greatly look forward to, and will answer all emails. Thanks.
   THE SINGLE MOST COMPELLING OBSTACLE TO URBAN PRISONS AND CRITICAL-INFRASTRUCTURE COUNTER-UAS OPERATIONS
   Gerald Blyth, 2026
   The central obstacle in urban prison and critical-infrastructure counter-UAS operations is not simply finding the drone. It is gaining permission to do something about it.
   Detection, tracking, and classification technologies have improved significantly. Modern radar, RF, EO/IR, thermal, acoustic, and AI-assisted systems can often provide useful warning and situational awareness. But in dense, populated, or highly regulated environments, awareness does not automatically translate into action.
   The real operational problem is created by three linked constraints: collateral-damage risk, liability and regulatory exposure, and the absence of a mitigation system that can defeat the drone while remaining acceptable for use near people, property, and sensitive infrastructure.
   These constraints can leave operators in an untenable position. They may have a clear track, a credible threat assessment, and a narrowing window for response, yet still be unable to act because every available mitigation option introduces unacceptable secondary risk. A kinetic interceptor, falling debris, RF disruption, high-energy system, or uncontrolled drone crash may create consequences as serious as the original drone threat.
   This is the engagement gap: the operational space between detection and defensible mitigation. It is the gap between knowing that a drone presents a threat and having an approved, low-collateral means of stopping it. In this gap, “Permission to Engage” is delayed, withheld, or avoided altogether—not because the threat is invisible, but because the response is not sufficiently safe, bounded, or politically defensible.
   For critical infrastructure, prisons and urban defence, this is the problem that must be solved. Better sensors may improve awareness, but only a credible low-collateral mitigation capability can convert awareness into authorized action.
   A counter-UAS system that cannot be safely authorized for use in the environment it is meant to defend is not yet a complete defensive capability.

   Urban Prisons / Critical Infrastructure Environment
   In dense urban settings, prisons, airports, refineries, power stations , ports, or government facilities, the question is often: “Can we stop the drone without creating a worse event?”
   That is the core issue.
   Why collateral dominates
   Most existing effectors create unacceptable uncertainty:
   Effector Type Typical Concern
   Guns / ballistic interceptors – Falling rounds, ricochet, penetration
   Fragmenting munitions – Secondary debris field
   RF jamming – Interference with friendly systems, legal restrictions
   GNSS spoofing – Airspace/safety implications
   Lasers – Eye safety, reflective hazards, dwell time
   Nets – Misses, falling entanglement masses
   HPM / EMP – Electronics interference concerns
   Missiles – Massive overmatch in populated areas
   Even if an effector works technically, decision makers may still refuse authorization because:
   • the downrange risk is unknown,
   • debris trajectory is uncontrolled,
   • terminal behavior is unpredictable,
   • the drone may crash into civilians/infrastructure,
   • or the legal exposure is unacceptable.
   ________________________________________
   Permission to Engage (PTE) is often the real bottleneck
   This is extremely important.
   In many real-world scenarios:
   • the operator already sees the drone,
   • the system already tracks the drone,
   • leadership already knows it is unauthorized,
   …but nobody wants to authorize the shot.
   Why?
   Because the engagement itself may produce:
   • injury,
   • litigation,
   • airspace shutdowns,
   • infrastructure damage,
   • public backlash,
   • or political scrutiny.
   So the problem shifts from:
   “Can we hit it?”
   to:
   “Can we justify hitting it?”
   That distinction is profound.
   ________________________________________
   Airports are the clearest example
   At an airport, a defender may have:
   • radar track,
   • EO confirmation,
   • drone classification,
   • probable hostile intent,
   …and still refuse engagement because:
   • a falling drone onto a runway could itself create a hazard,
   • RF effects may impact aviation systems,
   • debris could enter aircraft movement areas,
   • kinetic interceptors are politically and operationally difficult.
   Thus:
   detection capability exceeds engagement confidence.
   That gap is arguably the defining C-UAS problem of the 2020s.

   Critical Infrastructure
   For:
   nuclear facilities,
   • substations,
   • LNG terminals,
   • refineries,
   • data centers,
   • government complexes,
   the problem becomes even more severe because:
   The infrastructure itself may be fragile
   A successful intercept can still create:
   • conductive debris,
   • fire,
   • contamination,
   • cascading outages,
   • secondary explosions,
   • public panic.
   So operators often default toward:
   • monitoring,
   • tracking,
   • escalation,
   • law enforcement notification,
   rather than immediate engagement.
   ________________________________________
   Prisons are somewhat different
   Correctional facilities are arguably the environment where:
   low-collateral physical interception becomes most operationally compelling.
   Why?
   Because prisons face:
   • frequent drone incursions,
   • relatively small, defended areas,
   • repeat ingress routes,
   • low-altitude flights,
   • urgent interdiction needs, and
   • extreme concern about rounds leaving the site.
   The typical prison authority worries about:
   Concern Importance
   Rounds leaving perimeter Extremely high
   Injuring civilians/inmates Extremely high
   Staffing burden Very high
   24/7 operation Very high
   Legal defensibility Very high
   Drone escape after detection High
   Public optics High
   So, in prisons:
   Permission to engage and collateral risk become almost inseparable
   A prison may want to engage the drone quickly —
   but only if the engagement method itself:
   • remains bounded – shots cannot hit anything outside the prison perimeter – ever,
   • predictable, accurately timed projectile conversion to harmless, soft fragments,
   • low-risk of collateral damage to civilians or infrastructure inside and outside the prison perimeter,
   • No conventional ammunition or pyrotechnics employed/ non toxic and environmentally friendly

   The above points makes the engagement operationally defensible.

   This is why “bounded terminal behavior” matters
   This is the key conceptual shift of BEPI –
   see my Paper,” Beyond Kinetic and Non-Kinetic: Why C-UAS Needs BEPI” Email me and I will email it to you: GBlyth@WaterSlug.com
   Traditional classifications:
   • “kinetic”
   • “non-kinetic”
   do not adequately express:
   • predictable failure modes,
   • potential for collateral damage,
   • bounded energy transfer,
   • limited debris propagation,
   • programmed terminal decay, or
   • constrained engagement envelopes.
   From an operational perspective, decision makers increasingly care about:
   “What happens after the intercept?” and “What happens if we miss the target”
   not merely:
   “Can the interceptor reach the target?”
   That is a major doctrinal evolution.
   The most important sentence
   If I had to compress the modern urban/prison C-UAS problem into one sentence:
   “The greatest obstacle is not detecting hostile drones, but achieving an engagement method whose consequences are more acceptable than the threat itself.”
   That is the heart of the issue.
   And it explains why:
   • bounded-risk effectors,
   • predictable terminal behavior,
   • programmable engagement envelopes, and
   • low-collateral intercept concepts
   are strategically interesting to prison authorities, airport administrators, and critical-infrastructure operators.

   Relative weighting by environment
   Environment Primary Obstacle
   Urban Prison – Collateral damage – Permission to Engage hesitation
   Airports – Airspace safety/parked aircraft safety + liability
   Critical infrastructure – Secondary effects/cascading damage
   Prisons – Safe authorization to engage

   A “Permission-to-Engage Enabler” approach is strategically strong
   Because it reframes the problem from:
   “Another interceptor”
   to:
   “An interceptor specifically designed to reduce engagement hesitation.”
   That is a materially different procurement narrative.
   Especially for:
   • prisons,
   • airports,
   • municipalities,
   • utilities,
   • and civilian infrastructure operators.
   ***** Buyers often do not need the most lethal solution.
   ***** They need:
   ***** the solution they are willing to authorize in real time.
   Thanks for reading – please comment. My website, https://www.WaterSlug.com is not yet completed.

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