Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-01-29 Origin: Site
Due to the inherent characteristics of "low-altitude, slow-speed, and small-sized" drones, such as low flight altitude, slow flight speed, and small radar cross-section (RCS), their detection and identification face problems of high difficulty and low accuracy. At present, the mainstream detection methods adopted in anti-drone systems mainly include radar detection, optoelectronic detection, radar-optoelectronic integrated detection, and passive detection. Among them, radar detection can be divided into two categories: mechanical scanning radar and electronic scanning radar. Compared with early mechanical scanning radar, electronic scanning radar has significant advantages in key indicators such as scanning rate, beam direction switching speed, and target signal measurement accuracy. In addition, its antenna drive system has a lower failure rate and better operational stability.
Optoelectronic detection technology covers branches such as visible light detection, low-light night vision detection, and infrared detection. Each type of technology is suitable for different application scenarios and has its own technical focus: visible light detection can clearly capture the outline of short-range drones in sunny days or well-lit environments to achieve accurate target identification; low-light night vision detection is mainly applied in low-illumination environments at night, which can effectively make up for the limitations of visible light detection in night work; infrared detection realizes target detection by capturing the infrared signal characteristics radiated by the drone itself, and has the prominent advantages of strong concealment, long detection distance, and all-weather continuous operation. The radar-optoelectronic integrated detection technology organically integrates radar and optoelectronic equipment, relying on the radar system to achieve large-scale and long-distance target search. Once a drone target is captured, it immediately guides the optoelectronic equipment to carry out accurate detection and identification, significantly improving the accuracy and reliability of target identification.
Passive detection technology mainly includes acoustic wave detection and radio detection, which, together with infrared detection technology, belong to the category of passive detection. It does not need to actively transmit detection signals and has more prominent concealment. Acoustic wave detection can realize accurate identification and determination of the flight status and model of the drone; radio detection carries out detection operations by capturing the frequency band signals of the drone's remote control link, and has all-weather and all-weather target detection capabilities. Currently, among various detection technologies, radar-optoelectronic integrated detection and radio detection equipment have the widest application range and the most comprehensive applicable protection scenarios.
For the countermeasure work against "low-altitude, slow-speed, and small-sized" drones, two core technical paths of "soft kill" and "hard kill" are adopted. The two are complementary and coordinated, and the appropriate countermeasure method can be flexibly selected according to protection needs and scenario characteristics.
Soft kill technology takes low collateral damage as the core principle. It forces the drone to return, land forcibly, or lose control by interfering with, shielding, or manipulating the drone's communication link, network system, and command and control system. Specifically, it can be divided into various technical methods such as communication jamming, navigation jamming, camouflage deception, navigation spoofing, air net hanging, ground net launching, hacking, and animal capture. Among them, the actual combat cases where Iran successfully captured the U.S. military's RQ-17 Sentinel drone and "ScanEagle" drone have fully verified the practicality and reliability of the navigation spoofing technology. Camouflage deception technology interferes with the drone's target identification system and misleads its identification and judgment by constructing a "false target" similar to the protected target, thereby realizing effective protection of the core target.
Both air net hanging and ground net launching belong to non-destructive capture technologies, which can achieve low-collateral-damage capture of target drones: air net hanging relies on one or more drones carrying woven nets with parachutes to intercept and capture target drones in the air; ground net launching completes the capture operation of low-flying drones by launching woven nets through ground launch devices. Hacking technology modifies the drone's control program, track planning parameters, or sends "false instructions" to it through program penetration methods to force the drone to land forcibly, return, or lose control. Animal capture technology uses professionally trained birds of prey to physically capture invading drones. This technical method has both environmental protection and flexibility, and has been successfully applied in the security work of The Hague in the Netherlands and the anti-drone practice of the French Air Force.
Hard kill technology refers to directly damaging and attacking the drone target to completely destroy it or make it crash, thereby completely eliminating the drone threat. It mainly includes technical means such as conventional ammunition interception, high-energy laser destruction, high-power microwave damage, and air combat. Conventional ammunition interception mainly uses equipment such as anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft missiles to carry out drone interception operations. This technology is mature and widely used, but it has the disadvantages of low interception accuracy and large collateral damage. At present, the United States has successfully completed two anti-drone actual combat tests through the anti-aircraft artillery air defense system, verifying the feasibility of this technology.
High-energy laser destruction technology uses high-energy laser beams to focus and irradiate key components of the drone (such as navigation system and power system), causing component burnout and failure, and then forcing the drone to crash. This technology has the advantages of high accuracy and low collateral damage. At present, the United States and the United Kingdom have carried out a number of laser weapon anti-drone tests, all achieving good results of intercepting multiple drones at a time. Compared with high-energy laser destruction technology, high-power microwave damage technology has the advantages of wide emission beam, long action distance, wide fire coverage, and strong controllability. The U.S. "Phaser" high-power anti-drone system achieved an excellent result of successfully shooting down 33 drones with a single launch during the test, demonstrating extremely strong anti-drone combat effectiveness. Air combat technology is still in its initial stage with low technical maturity. Its core is to form a "fragment cloud" through the detonation of a single drone, or form a combat cluster with multiple drones to carry out suicide attacks on target drones, thereby destroying the target. This technology still needs further research and improvement to enhance operational stability and reliability.
With the rapid development of high-precision manufacturing industry and the continuous iteration of intelligent algorithm technology, the control technology of anti-drone equipment has been gradually upgraded and optimized. It has steadily advanced from the initial pure manual operation mode to three directions: human-in-the-loop semi-autonomous control, human-out-of-the-loop unattended operation, and multi-equipment cooperative networking control, significantly improving the combat effectiveness and duty capacity of the anti-drone system.
The pure manual operation mode completely relies on the operator's visual observation and manual operation to complete the whole process of drone detection, identification, and countermeasures. This mode puts extremely high requirements on the operator's professional and technical level, emergency response capability, and continuous attention. It is only suitable for short-term and small-scale temporary protection scenarios and cannot meet the needs of long-term and regular protection. The human-in-the-loop semi-autonomous control mode adopts a cooperative mode of "human decision-making + equipment autonomous execution". The operator mainly undertakes the responsibilities of core decision-making and abnormal situation handling, and the equipment independently completes target search, tracking, identification, and conventional countermeasure actions. It not only retains the flexibility of human decision-making, but also reduces the work intensity of the operator, effectively extends the system duty time, and improves the stability and continuity of duty work.
The human-out-of-the-loop unattended mode takes the intelligent control system as the core. Through presetting prevention and control parameters and optimizing algorithm models, it realizes all-weather and all-weather autonomous duty in different application scenarios without on-site human intervention, which greatly reduces the cost of human input and significantly improves the response speed and operation efficiency of target detection, identification, and countermeasures. The cooperative networking control technology realizes networked coordination of multiple sets of distributed detection equipment and countermeasure equipment through wired or wireless communication methods, achieving information sharing and cooperative operation between equipment. It can build a 360-degree dead-angle-free prevention and control network. On the basis of improving target detection accuracy, identification accuracy, and countermeasure early warning time, it greatly enhances the overall combat effectiveness of the anti-drone system, and is suitable for large-scale and high-protection-level core area prevention and control scenarios.
The platform loading of drone detection and countermeasure equipment must be strictly adapted to the protection needs of different application scenarios. By selecting a suitable loading platform, the detection and countermeasure performance of the equipment can be fully exerted, and the effectiveness of prevention and control work can be guaranteed. Among them, portable detection and countermeasure equipment has the technical characteristics of small size, high integration, and light weight. It can be flexibly deployed and quickly transferred according to changes in the use area, basically not restricted by space and terrain conditions, and is suitable for temporary protection, mobile protection, and emergency response scenarios.
Vehicle-mounted fixed and distributed fixed loading platforms are mainly applied in protection areas with relatively fixed deployment positions and long service cycles, such as airports, nuclear power plants, important government venues, and large-scale event sites. They can realize regular and all-weather prevention and control of fixed areas and ensure the safety and stability of core areas. Mobile loading platforms such as vehicle-mounted mobile, distributed mobile, airborne, and shipborne are mainly used for the accompanying protection of key protected targets. They can realize real-time detection and dynamic countermeasures along with the movement of the target, effectively resist the drone threat during the movement process, and ensure the dynamic safety of key targets.
