AMBOS Offers Support In The Fight Against Drones

Drones have ushered in a new dimension to airborne attacks and increasingly confront security agencies (referred to collectively in German as BOS) with new challenges.

Drone incidents at the London Gatwick, London Heathrow, and Frankfurt/Main airports have brought operations at three of the largest European airports to a temporary halt, all within six months. 

Counter the threat of drones

There is also a real possibility of attacks targeting critical Infrastructure and major events in light of growing terrorist threats, which is why there is a critical need for systems that can help defend against drones.

Devising such systems was the task set out for the BMBF-funded 'AMBOS' project. After two and a half years, the research project has come to a close with a successful demonstration of the solution it developed.

AMBOS project

The bi-national project was commissioned to develop one demonstrator each in Germany and Austria

In all, twelve partners from industry, research, and educational institutions were involved in the research project titled 'Defense against unmanned aerial vehicles for BOS (AMBOS)', which was funded with 2.9 million Euros and started in February 2017. 

The bi-national project was commissioned to develop one demonstrator each in Germany and Austria for defense against drones in defined security areas. 

system development and evaluation

The Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing, and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg was responsible for coordinating the project.

In the German consortium, the development and evaluation of the system were carried out by six associated civilian authorities and organizations with security functions (BOS): the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Police, the State Police of North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wuerttemberg, the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office and the German Police University.

drones to target individuals

As the number of drones in the sky rises, more and more situations arise in which drones enter no-fly zones"

"AMBOS is essentially based on scenarios in which terrorist forces use drones to target individuals, government representatives, and institutions or critical government infrastructures," explains Network Coordinator and FKIE Project Manager, Hans Peter Stuch. 

Hans Peter Stuch adds, "As the number of drones in the sky rises, more and more situations arise in which drones enter no-fly zones out of carelessness, lack of technical understanding or for other illegal, but not terrorist, reasons."

System architecture and project findings

A multi-modal approach was pursued in the project as the only promising solution for a reliable detection and defense system. The AMBOS demonstrator detects airspace threats using four different sensor modalities: radio, acoustics, electro-optics/infrared, and radar.

The aim of the sensor-data fusion developed by the Fraunhofer FKIE in the context of the project was to capitalize on the advantages of the individual sensor systems with an intelligent combination of algorithms while eliminating their disadvantages. This succeeded: the detection rate increased, and the false alarm rate was significantly reduced.

proportionate intervention measure

The system architecture is designed to combine the merged sensor data to form an ergonomic situational picture. The picture helps users decide which active, proportionate intervention measure to take based on the situation and level of threat.

Options range from jamming the drone’s radio control system, satellite navigation, or on-board electronics to intercepting the unmanned aircraft with a  net.

binding framework

Legal and ethical aspects of drone defense were also studied in the context of project-related research

To ensure that users make such decisions on a legally secure basis in the future, legal and ethical aspects of drone defense were also studied in the context of project-related research. 

Numerous gaps were identified for which the existing regulations do not yet provide a binding framework. The onus is on lawmakers to make the necessary regulatory adjustments.

Successful final demonstration

Experiments explored the capabilities and limitations of AMBOS during an intensive evaluation and subsequent demonstration in the presence of numerous visitors from the German security authorities in Mosbach in May 2019.

The experiments very clearly demonstrated the versatility of the sensors as an indispensable feature of a reliable drone defense system. The individual sensor types proved their strength but also revealed some less optimal possible applications.

Overall, however, nearly all of the components developed or refined within the framework of the AMBOS project performed well in conjunction with the core system comprising data fusion, situation display, and decision-support functions.