Police Drone Taken Down by Laser Pointers

[Hoji]

interesting.

 

[PhulesAu]

Blinded the camera? operator lost control is my guess.

 

[Hoji]

Blinded the camera? operator lost control is my guess.

Yep.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Don't they have a "return to base" option?

 

[no2gates]

Don't they have a "return to base" option?

You would think it would have that ability, since the ones you can buy off the shelf have that built in function.

 

[Sock Puppet]

Don't they have a "return to base" option?

TOOMA, but if they lose the signal. If the operator's signal was still strong it wouldn't kick in. With the camera blinded, the operator likely couldn't maintain spatial orientation and lost control.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

TOOMA, but if they lose the signal. If the operator's signal was still strong it wouldn't kick in. With the camera blinded, the operator likely couldn't maintain spatial orientation and lost control.

I tried Google, but what is TOOMA?

 

[gll]

I tried Google, but what is TOOMA?

Talking out of my ass?

I used Urban Dictionary...

 

[cygunner]

Speaking of drones, has anyone seen HPD's lately. No, I am not talking about Avocado but he was one too. Years ago I was coming up from Katy on the Hockley-Katy road and when I went past the RC Field driveway I looked over and saw the biggest radio-controlled plane I had ever seen. Article in the Commiecale about the secret drone that wasn't secret anymore and that's the last I heard of it.

 

[Sock Puppet]

Talking out of my ass?

I used Urban Dictionary...

This...

 

[Younggun]

TOOMA, but if they lose the signal. If the operator's signal was still strong it wouldn't kick in. With the camera blinded, the operator likely couldn't maintain spatial orientation and lost control.

I would expect it to be at least as good as an off the shelf DJI. Under that assumption:

You don’t need to see the drone or have video feed to fly it. It will tell you altitude above take-off location, orientation, position, direction of travel, and location of “home base”.

Even with signal you can order it to return to home. This can include an instruction to climb to a predetermined height before returning.

And that is all available on a DJI Pantom 3. An older model that’l would be considered behind the times now.


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[gll]

Bunched lasers heated it enough to fry something?

Or one of them was in the 40 watt range...

 

[Renegade]

wrong thread

 

[Rhino]

A lot of the DJI ones also use the onboard cameras for more information for the drone. I guess enough laser light and the drone can't "see." Gotta wonder if someone was also using a GPS jammer... (shhh.). It's one of those things you hope never happens to you as a civilian drone operator.

 

[andre3k]

Speaking of drones, has anyone seen HPD's lately. No, I am not talking about Avocado but he was one too. Years ago I was coming up from Katy on the Hockley-Katy road and when I went past the RC Field driveway I looked over and saw the biggest radio-controlled plane I had ever seen. Article in the Commiecale about the secret drone that wasn't secret anymore and that's the last I heard of it.

That was just a demo by a vendor. Bellaire, Pearland, and PCT 1 constables have drones. HPD just added a new Airbus helicopter to the fleet so I don't see drones being purchased anytime soon.

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[Younggun]

A lot of the DJI ones also use the onboard cameras for more information for the drone. I guess enough laser light and the drone can't "see." Gotta wonder if someone was also using a GPS jammer... (shhh.). It's one of those things you hope never happens to you as a civilian drone operator.

A jammer is far more likely, IMO. Most never learn to fly a drone without the GPS to assist. But that shouldn’t effect the ability to auto level. It could put it in to an autolanding mode though.

The only other cameras I can think of on a DJI that are used for sensor data are down facing cameras that could help with maintaining position when indoors under certain circumstances, but wouldn’t really matter for this one with its height and being outdoors. There are rear collision sensors meant to stop you from backing in to things, but they weren’t cameras afaik. Still wouldn’t cause a loss of control like that.



So I lean towards jammer and a pilot who couldn’t fly without GPS, wasn’t aware how to manually disengage the forced landing, or both. It’s also possible that the jammer (if one was used) had a very dirty signal like most homemade devices and the frequency bleed also overwhelmed the transmitter signal leaving the drone to default to an autolanding mode.

Or he simply freaked out when he couldn’t see and hadn’t learned how to fly by the GPS.


Last option: It’s not GPS capable at all and was flown only by LoS and the camera feed. He was not in LoS and lost the camera so he chose to put it down instead of climbing away from the lasers and running.


All speculation, especially not even knowing what type of drone it is.


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[cygunner]

That was just a demo by a vendor. Bellaire, Pearland, and PCT 1 constables have drones. HPD just added a new Airbus helicopter to the fleet so I don't see drones being purchased anytime soon.

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Guess commiecale had it wrong. No surprise.

 

[Rhino]

A jammer is far more likely, IMO. Most never learn to fly a drone without the GPS to assist. But that shouldn’t effect the ability to auto level. It could put it in to an autolanding mode though.

The only other cameras I can think of on a DJI that are used for sensor data are down facing cameras that could help with maintaining position when indoors under certain circumstances, but wouldn’t really matter for this one with its height and being outdoors. There are rear collision sensors meant to stop you from backing in to things, but they weren’t cameras afaik. Still wouldn’t cause a loss of control like that.



So I lean towards jammer and a pilot who couldn’t fly without GPS, wasn’t aware how to manually disengage the forced landing, or both. It’s also possible that the jammer (if one was used) had a very dirty signal like most homemade devices and the frequency bleed also overwhelmed the transmitter signal leaving the drone to default to an autolanding mode.

Or he simply freaked out when he couldn’t see and hadn’t learned how to fly by the GPS.


Last option: It’s not GPS capable at all and was flown only by LoS and the camera feed. He was not in LoS and lost the camera so he chose to put it down instead of climbing away from the lasers and running.


All speculation, especially not even knowing what type of drone it is.


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Yeah, I occasionally have to operate drones professionally and I agree with most of this assessment. I think that GPS Jammers are gonna be gold in the future, and also problematic for everyone.