Countermeasures for unmanned aerial vehicles for authorities and emergency and rescue organizations

Unmanned aerial vehicles are commercially available in a variety of price and weight classes equipped with basic functionality such as waypoint navigation or programmable digital outputs. Consequently, all necessary functionalities for a potential attack are available. Thus, these devices constitute risk. From the perspective of security, for maintenance of essential goods and services in Austria, an adaptation to new kinds of threats is crucial.

Based on the cross-border knowledge from the German G7-Summit in 2015 and Austria's Bilderberg-Meeting in 2015, technological, legal and ethical gaps have been identified, which are addressed in this project.  

The overall objectives of this project are: 

• Development and evaluation of technology components in particular electro-optics, acoustics and communications technology, in order to detect potential threats and protect against them using proportionate means of intervention. Sensor fusion of the various sensor technologies will be implemented to ensure a robust and reliable sensor system.  
• Constitution of the user processes and interfaces for modern civil air defense systems in terms of interoperability with existing crisis management systems and decision support.  
• Examination of the legislative approaches that allow a constitutional intervention and technical means in accordance with the legal bases.
• Implementation and validation of the officially relevant scenarios, with focus on the protection of people and critical infrastructure.  
• Examination of the social and ethical aspects of using such technologies in the  civilian sector.

Particular emphasis will be put on exceeding the current state of the art of the used technologies as well as providing an instruction manual for official use of the technology and as a decision aid in case such systems are purchased. The results will be shown as a functional technology demonstrator based on the relevant scenarios for authorities.
The Danube University Krems contributed their special knowledge for the development of electronic countermeasures.

Project partners:

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (project coordinator)
Frequentis AG
CNS-Solutions & Support GmbH
INRAS GmbH
Austro Control Österreichische Gesellschaft für Zivilluftfahrt mBH
Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
Donau Universität Krems - Department für Integrierte Sensorsysteme
Bundesministerium für Inneres
Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung und Sport
Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie